Casino injunction tossed

Photo: Colin Dacre

An application for an injunction by management of the Penticton Cascades Casino against striking workers, alleging they were harassing non-union workers and patrons, has been thrown out by a B.C. Supreme Court judge.

Gateway Casinos attempted to argue during a two-day hearing last month in that picketing BCGEU workers were blocking access to the business, trespassing and confronting non-union staff and patrons crossing lines.

Justice Michael Tammen disagreed, stating in his decision posted online this week “picketing behaviour of the union thus far has been generally peaceful and has not strayed into unlawful conduct.”

Gateway’s case relied primarily relied upon an affidavit of casino general manager Michael Magnusson and several videos showing incidents on the picket line Sept. 10 and 12.

“I am satisfied that the activities of picketers, as depicted in the video evidence, do not amount to a blockade,” Tammen said, explaining the maximum time a car is delayed by picketers is less than 10 seconds.

“Although this delay results from an organized picket line, it amounts to nothing more than the everyday inconvenience experienced by motorists being required to stop for random pedestrians walking across a driveway.”

One video shows a union member calling a patron a “scab” and called her action of crossing the picket line “a crime.”

“Obviously both comments are inaccurate, and the former is hurtful and demeaning,” Tammen said. “However, that type of commentary does not rise to the level of intimidation or harassment.”

During another incident, a picketer called a casino patron a “retired stripper.” Prior to the comment, however, Tammen said the patron “engaged in a well-known form of expressive behaviour directed at the picketers, by dropping her pants and exposing her buttocks to them.”

One picketer also told an elderly woman “we hope she stays” in a wheelchair she was bound to as she crossed the picket lines, leading the woman’s husband to report the comment to the RCMP.

The judge called conduct on the picket lines “impolite and in poor taste,” but not unlawful, and “the sort of exchange which one might expect on a picket line during a bitter labour dispute.”

Tammen also found that any trespassing that may have occurred was incidental to picketing. He, however, warned the union to stop following cars into the casino parking lot, even briefly.

The almost 700 unionized casino workers in Penticton, Kelowna, Vernon and Kamloops walked off the job June 29 in pursuit of higher wages.