Defence granted time to speak with client after Crown wraps case in Addison trial

In the days leading up to the Crown’s final witness, the court also heard further details around Addison’s various grievances with former employer Western Forest Products, whose Nanaimo mill was the site of a deadly shooting on April 30, 2014.

Addison approached the WFP plant committee late in 2007 with a grievance regarding what he described as “an overtime issue,” said Steven Toews, a sorter operator at the mill who testified earlier in the trial.

“The head oiler took sick and Kevin filled in for him,” said Toews, and according to the union book, Addison was supposed to be paid time and a half for one hour of overtime per day.

Toews decided to take on the grievance and spoke to both plant committee chairman Michael Lunn and then-foreman Fred McEachern about it, but the process seemed to proceed “very slowly,” he said.

“They gave me the impression he wasn’t entitled to it,” said Toews. Addison seemed frustrated, he added.

“Was there a reason Mike Lunn hadn’t been entrusted with the grievance?” Crown counsel Scott Van Alstine asked Toews.

“He just felt that Mike wouldn’t represent him in a timely fashion.” said Toews. “He just didn’t feel like he was going to get fair representation.”

The grievance was ultimately settled and Addison was paid for the 116 hours he was owed, said Brian Butler, president of the United Steelworker’s Union.

The mill shut down in 2008 and reopened two years later in a limited capacity. All the workers with more seniority than Addison were called back but he was not, said Butler.

“Our issue at the time was, and both Mike Lunn and I and other committee members raised with the company that there were a lot of cases where one employee would cover two jobs, so we felt more people should have been recalled,” said Butler.

The other grievance Addison raised came in 2010 and essentially involved three components, said Butler, and the first concerned McEachern, who was a supervisor at the mill.

“The claim was that he should have been called back to work, to do the work that Fred was doing,” said Butler. “The view was that there wasn’t a significant amount of work that would have made a grievance over the issue successful.”

The second point concerned millwrights doing oiling work, which Addison felt he should have been recalled instead as he was trained to do it.

“There wasn’t merit to it. Management has direction of the work force and the people who had did the work were senior, and if they wished to direct them to do the oiling work they had the right to do that,” said Butler.

The final component of the grievance concerned contract carpenters who were directed to do some welding, which Addison thought he could do, though the company had no record of him being a ticketed welder. Regardless, WFP had two welders with greater seniority who would have been first in line to do the work anyway, said Butler.

Ultimately, the committee decided not to pursue Addison’s claims any further.

“If the grievance was with merit, believe me I’d be pursuing it. Our role was to get people back to work and Kevin was one of those people we would have liked to have got back to work,” said Butler.

Both McEachern and Lunn were killed in the mill shooting rampage, which also injured other employees Tony Sudar and Earl Kelly.

The trial continues on Thursday.

by Julie Chadwick

Defence granted time to speak with client after Crown wraps case in Addison trial

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