Close to 250 unionized workers at Windsor Salt are on strike.
As AM800 news reported Friday morning, workers hit the picket line just after midnight to back contract demands.
They are represented by Unifor Local 1959 and Local 240.
Local 1959 president Bill Wark works at the Ojibway Mine and says this has been the most difficult set of bargaining for Windsor Salt workers in 20-years.
"We're out on the picket line today to resist the company's concessionary demands for jobs security and contracting out," says Wark.
He says no new talks are planned.
"What they presented since January 16 would set us back 40 years in what they're trying to do," he says. "Their ability to bring in non-unionized contract workers while we're potentially in a layoff situation, those are issues that we just simply can't agree to."
Wark says the union is looking for a fair collective agreement for its members and company.
"Usually in the prior years sets of bargaining, there was always a path forward and in this set of bargaining, it was agree to the company's concessionary demands and then we'll think about what the union brings to the table," says Wark.
According to the union, negotiations are at a standstill as the company's representatives refuse to discuss any monetary items without agreements from the union to allow widespread contracting out of union jobs.
Workers impacted by the strike are in the office, the Ojibway Mine and the evaporation processing fields.
This round of bargaining is the first since Windsor Salt was purchased by U.S. based Stone Canyon Industries.