Sarah Holland
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (June 19/02) - Jerry Weselowski is three and a half years away from retirement. After 27 years with NorthwesTel, he's in no hurry to leave the company and the pension.

NorthwesTel strikers Carol Corey and Jerry Weselowski walk the picket line outside NorthwesTel tower on Franklin Avenue. Almost 400 unionized NorthwesTel workers began to strike May 27 across northern British Columbia, the Yukon, NWT and Nunavut. - Sarah Holland/NNSL photo

Almost 400 NorthwesTel operators, technicians and clerical workers across northern British Columbia, the Yukon, NWT and Nunavut have been on strike -- the first in the company's history -- since May 27. They had been working without a new contract since Dec. 31.

Vancouver-based federal conciliator Bill Lewis has been meeting on and off with the parties since February. The Canadian Industrial Relations Board has jurisdiction over the federally regulated telecommunications industry.

NorthwesTel is owned by Bell Canada. Its unionized workers are represented by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW). The IBEW provides no strike pay to the strikers, although a hardship fund exists for the neediest workers on the picket lines.

NorthwesTel provides primary telephone service to 110,000 customers in 96 communities across almost four million square kilometres, from Grise Fiord in Nunavut to Wonowon, B.C.

In 1975 Weselowski began working for NorthwesTel. He was stationed in Inuvik, Hay River and Whitehorse, and the technician now calls Yellowknife home.

Weselowski spends his days on the picket lines and working otherwise part-time as a gardener. The first-time striker has no plans to find work anywhere else, since he would lose the majority of his pension, he said.

"This is the first time in 27 years," said Weselowski, referring to the strike. "I got three and a half years to go. I'm losing right now. My Mastercard's maxed out."

Weselowski said he doesn't like the situation, but he won't back down from the union's demands.

"Yeah I'm frustrated, but I'm going for broke," he said. "We're already out here, we might as well stay until we get what we want."

He doesn't blame the managers in Yellowknife, he said.

"I blame Bell Canada, the president, the owners," he said.

Shane Greening is a technician who said he's just trying to survive by doing full-time construction work during the strike.

"Trying to keep the wolf from the door," he said. "It's no trouble to find other work. In five minutes you can have another job."

Four other NorthwesTel employees are working construction with Greening, he said.

Robert Sakovich is usually on the picket line at 6 a.m., eager for NorthwesTel managers to hear what he has to say.

"I asked managers to contribute to our hardship fund. I figured there was no harm in asking."

"Yeah, and one manager said if he did it, it would have to be anonymous," said Carol Corey, another employee walking the picket lines.

Sakovich isn't working right now. He said his wife works and they're using savings.

Corey starts picketing early in the morning as well, both downtown and at the NorthwesTel compound on Old Airport Road. Both Corey and her ex-husband are on strike, and funds aren't an issue, yet.

"I will go as long as I can. I live in a shack so the overhead is pretty low," said Corey.

"But if this goes on ... I wonder if it's time to change careers. I've been here 10 years, maybe something new."

A few strikers, who didn't wish to be named, said their temporary solution is to live off savings.

Some left for new jobs altogether while others turned their part-time jobs into full-time work.

Dave Moran, the Yellowknife unit chair for NorthwesTel's unionized employees, estimates about 20 employees have gone south to find work or stay with friends and relatives.

Last Wednesday, NorthwesTel made a new offer to the union: general wage increases of four per cent in 2002, 3.5 per cent in 2003 and 3.5 per cent in 2004.

Friday afternoon the union counter-offered: 4.8 per cent in 2002, 4.6 per cent in 2003 and 4.4 per cent in 2004.

NorthwesTel rejected the union's counter-offer.

- with files from John Barker