REGINA -- Jared Savage, an occupational health and safety professional, was called into work at the Co-Op Refinery Complex during the first few days of the labour dispute at the facility, but he never made it beyond the fence.

Savage was one of 24 temporary workers on a bus chartered by Federated Co-Op, but the bus was stopped from entering the facility. It then travelled to a Balgonie gas station where Savage alleges the bus was followed by a vehicle full of Unifor picketers.

He claims the locked out workers confronted them at the gas station and alleges they harassed and assaulted him.

“It’s almost like he checked me into his shoulder, I smashed into the guy, we smashed heads and with an overhand strike, he smashed my hand because he wanted the list – I had a list of people with their phone numbers on it – and he smashed my hand, ripped it out of my hand and started running away,” Savage told CTV News.

RCMP is investigating the incident.

Savage says the names on the list have been receiving phone calls and text messages from Unifor members.

“The next morning, when we got up, we went to have another meeting and one of the gentlemen brought out his phone and said, ‘Hey, people are texting me’, and we come to find out that they were fishing for information, asking him if he got out of the situation okay, if he was alright,” Savage said.

Unifor Local 594 President Kevin Bittman says he isn’t aware of this incident happening.

“In the first three or four days when tensions were a little bit high, the company locks you out, people were amped up a little bit,” he said. “We did communicate with our membership and everybody’s calmed down quite a bit, so I’m not sure if something went one early in the proceedings.”

Savage says the incident is something that will stay with him.

“This isn’t going to be overnight being able to let this go,” he said. “I’m concerned when I walk in public places, who’s going to jump me now, so this was something that was pretty traumatic and I don’t know how long I’m going to be dealing with it.”

Savage provided an affidavit of the incident to Co-Op’s lawyers, which Co-Op included in their injunction filed on Tuesday to force Unifor to pare down the picketing at entrances and exits of the refinery.