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Hours after vowing an escalation on the picket line outside the Co-op Refinery Complex (CRC), Unifor national president Jerry Dias was among the picketers arrested when Regina police tried to move the crowd blocking the site.

According to Lana Payne, Unifor’s national secretary-treasurer, six of their other members had been arrested by early Monday evening. Still, the union remained defiant. “We’re holding the line,” she said.

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Dias initially tried to shove off an officer’s hand before appearing to submit to the arrest, handing off his cellphone to a woman, and walking into the paddy wagon as another union member shouted, “We’re standing up for workers’ rights and this is how they treat us here? We’ll stand every day to defend workers.”

“We’ve got a very big problem in Regina and Saskatchewan when the police would think that it’s okay to arrest the national president of a union who’s here defending our members,” said Payne after Dias’ arrest.