Striking workers at the Sun-Rype fruit company in Kelowna say they are fighting to keep the benefits they have. But they fear they are up against more than the tough-bargaining management officially in charge.

Many worry that B.C.'s most powerful businessman is waiting in the wings to seize control of the company. Jimmy Pattison already owns at least a third of the firm's shares. And he's been steadily accumulating them for nearly a year.

"I don't talk about my holdings," Pattison told The Tyee. "I have no comment about the strike. I don't comment on matters like that."

Sun-Rype Products was founded in Kelowna as a growers' co-operative in 1946 and launched as a publicly traded company in 1996.

An undated page on the Sun-Rype company website says that the Jim Pattison Group owned 32 per cent of Sun-Rype stock when the posting was made. It is unclear whether that is the percentage of Pattison's holdings now. The multi-millionaire has been making steady purchases of Sun-Rype stock all year, with his first of 46 separate purchases made in February and his latest made Dec. 7, according to research posted www.inkresearch.ca on the website of INK Research, a firm that tracks insider trading in publicly offered companies in Canada.

Pattison's holding company, the Jim Pattison Group, is Canada's third largest privately held firm, and the assets he controls were recently estimated to be worth nearly $4 billion.

"Creeping takeovers were a known weapon in Pattison's arsenal of business strategies," according to a National Post report earlier this year that traced the billionaire's involvement with B.C. lumber giant Canfor. Sun-Rype workers fear their company is Pattison's next target.

NDP's Simpson: 'That's his style'

Vancouver-Hastings MLA Shane Simpson, who earlier this month spent time with Teamster pickets at Sun-Rype, suspects Pattison's involvement will guarantee a long strike.

"Jimmy Pattison has a history of not being involved unless he's in control," Simpson told The Tyee. "That's his style. I suspect he wants a very beneficial agreement from the union. What the workers told me is that the company is demanding significant roll-backs on existing benefits, so this is not a question of the union getting more from the company at all."

Meanwhile, on the Sun-Rype picket line, more than a month old now, workers say relations with the current management are increasingly bitter. The unionized employees had been working without a contract since Aug. 31 and had engaged in unproductive bargaining with management for over a year before they finally pulled the plug and went out on strike.

No cheque for Christmas

Two hundred and sixty-six workers are facing Christmas without a paycheque. Teamster business agent Gene Wirch told The Tyee that while Sun-Rype CEO Eric Sorenson has said in the local press that he is willing to negotiate, he has not, since the inception of the strike, engaged in any ordinary negotiations with the union.

On Dec. 7, Wirch said, the company tried "an end run designed to divide and conquer" by sending individual letters to all unionized employees with details of an offer and a threat that potential retroactive pay would be withdrawn if the company didn't get agreement to the offer by Dec. 16.

Sorenson and other Sun-Rype management figures were unavailable for comment after repeated phone messages left by The Tyee.

"Christmas is coming," Wirch said, "and we've had no real negotiations since the strike began. This is more than 260 paycheques we're talking about. This has an impact not only on my members but on the larger community. The company is trying to play on emotions here. We wouldn't even consider a vote on these terms."

Danger on the line?

Strikers have complained of company security guards almost ramming picketers' vehicles while they pursued a truck moving apples out of the strike bound plant, according to an article in a Kelowna newspaper, the Daily Courier.

Videos posted to YouTube from the Sun-Rype picket line show a truck crossing the picket line at what appears to be dangerous speed and striking two workers who try to block its way.

"We've given our loyalty to the company, but the company doesn't show loyalty to us. It's corporate greed. That's what it's all about," Kevin Davies, a 31-year employee at Sun-Rype and member of the Teamster bargaining committee told the Daily Courier.

On Dec. 5, RCMP were called to the Sun-Rype picket line after security guards tore down a tarp erected by strikers and picketers responded by throwing snow balls and eggs, according to CastaNet, a web-based news service. The story notes that RCMP have been called to the picket line "on numerous occasions" during the strike.

If the increasingly bitter, and possibly dangerous, dispute is to be resolved, Teamster official Gene Wirch wonders, who is really calling the shots for management?

"Obviously, I can't say for sure that Pattison has control," Wirch said. "But his people on the board have a lot of influence."

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