United in Struggle

The Fight for IBB D277’s Right to Picket is a Fight for Everyone’s Right to Strike!

Since January, members of the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers Lodge D277 in Delta have been locked out by their employer, Heidelberg Materials. Like all the big employers today, Heidelberg is attempting to roll back the protections that the working class has won over the past 200 years. Heidelberg’s ultimate goal is to break the union to bring in contract workers who are easier to exploit. In line with their union-busting goals, the Supreme Court of BC functionally revoked the union’s right to picket. This is another blatant example of collusion between employers and the state to undermine our fundamental rights.

In addition to throwing the workers of D277 out into the cold and withholding their benefits, Heidelberg surveils these workers intensely, waiting to make any claims that the union is breaching the restrictive framework of labour law or the ruling by the Supreme Court of BC. 

This interference by the Supreme Court of BC is in line with the rising anti-worker attacks by the federal government in collusion with large employers. Although under provincial jurisdiction, IBB D277 faces the same pattern of labour repression that rail, postal, port, and WestJet workers faced in 2024, when the then Federal Minister of Labour, Steven McKinnon, revoked workers’ constitutionally protected right to strike through the pro-employer Section 107 of the labour code. 

The construction materials sector is watching this dispute closely as its conclusion will set the parameters for others bargaining in the sector. If Heidelberg is successful in crushing the union, other employers across industries will feel empowered to replicate the same union-busting tactics.

The labour movement can’t stand idle while employers, the courts and the government attack the rights that so many workers have sacrificed their lives for. This time the labour movement is saying that enough is enough, it’s time we fight back against the collusion between employers and the state, and unite our movement around our shared interests.

Rally behind IBB D277!

Defend and advance our right to strike!