If you can take a grain of salt — or find one — you might want to keep it in the shaker..That’s because an unseasonably long strike in Ontario is causing shortages of the savoury slag across the country. And its not just home cooks and tastemakers who are feeling the pinch, but also homeowners who rely on the mineral for water softeners and treating hard well water..In February, 250 unionized workers at Windsor Salt, one of the country’s largest producers and distributors, walked off the job in what has turned into a bitter labour dispute. They’ve been on the pickets ever since..Workers are accusing US-based Stone Canyon Industries, which bought Windsor in 2021, of union busting and bad faith negotiating. Store Canyon also owns rival producer Morton Salt..The main dispute apart from wages is the widespread contracting out of jobs to non-union members..“Our strike is about fighting an employer bent on busting our union through a variety of structural changes including outsourcing our work and limiting union participation in the workplace,” said Unifor, which represent more than 315,000 workers in a variety of industries including retail, hospitality, health and even media sectors..Things got worse in April when a non-union worker was attacked by masked assailants wielding baseball bats, effectively ending direct negotiations. Union officials denied involvement..Earlier this summer, a dozen Windsor workers were charged with breaching a court order for obstructing trucks at the gate of the company’s Ojibway mine on April 11, which was the same day NDP leader Jagmeet Singh visited the picket lines in a show of solidarity..On July 26, workers rejected a tentative deal reached through a mediator that would have seen them go back to work. .Windsor’s investors include the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan..The Windsor salt company was formed in 1893 by William Van Horne, one of the original founders of the Canadian Pacific Railroad..In addition to table salt and water softener, shortages of kosher salt have also been reported. Salt is also a common preservative and used for tanning and curing animal hides..And if the present outage carries on into the winter months, the country could be facing a shortage of rock salt used for de-icing roads and sidewalks..According to Statistics Canada, from 90% to 95% of all salt consumed in Canada is for chemical and de-icing purposes. The bulk of the remainder is used in food processing, fisheries and other industrial uses.
