Strike operations playbook

Is this the operations page?

Use this playbook when a lawful strike or lockout is live or hours away. Other jobs live on other pages so members get the right help.

• Lawful strike or lockout only. Unauthorized stoppages put members and the local at risk. Stay inside the statutory path your Staff Representative confirms.
• The legal clock is elsewhere. Conciliation, strike votes, and No Board dates live on the Bargaining lifecycle guide. Do not announce a start date from this page.
• Public voice is Crisis comms. Who may speak, what never goes public, and how you answer management bait live on the Crisis Comms Guide.
• Individual files stay on the floor playbooks. Discipline, grievances, and duty of fair representation stay on Steward 101 and the grievance playbook. A stoppage does not pause those clocks.

Who decides what

Write names before the first gate opens. On a small local one person may hold two jobs. Two people must not hold the same job.

• Names on paper. President, strike committee lead, picket captains, hardship contact, and spokesperson. A sticky note beats a hallway rumour.
• Local executive. Holds the political yes and no: whether to start, settle, or return. Can delegate the day; cannot delegate the decision.
• Strike committee. Runs the day: gates, rotations, hardship questions, and the standing brief captains carry. Reports to executive, not to the Facebook group.
• Picket captains. Run a gate. They know who is in charge, what is in bounds, and who to call. They do not negotiate with the employer at the fence.
• Nobody else promises. Money, return-to-work terms, and legal positions come only from the people named for those jobs. A well-meaning volunteer is still a leak.

Before day one

The test is simple: can captains open a gate at 06:00 without calling the president for the washroom key.

• People. Enough captains for every gate and rotation, plus a backup for the first no-show. Write the phone tree on paper as well as a group chat.
• Places. Every gate location, a washroom plan, weather cover, and an indoor fallback if the employer or weather shuts a sidewalk.
• Money path. Know who runs strike pay if your parent union does, and who runs local hardship. Do not invent amounts or dates.
• Member reach. A way to reach every department and shift that is not an employer email list. Workplace mapping tells you who you will miss.
• Hardship path. One contact, one way to ask, one promise about when an answer comes. Members should not learn this in a comment thread on day three.

The picket line is the meeting

The line is where the local is visible. Treat it like a meeting with weather, not a photo backdrop.

• Locations everyone can find. Same gate names on the captains’ brief, the strike page, and the notice at the entrance. Do not invent a prettier name that members cannot match.
• Rotations that hold. Start times, length of a shift, and who relieves whom. A line that empties at lunch is a line the employer will test.
• Accessibility and weather. Seating, shade or warm-up, washrooms, and a plan for members who cannot stand a full rotation. An uncomfortable line empties.
• Visitors. Allies, reporters, and politicians go to the captain first. The captain knows the bounds. Nobody gives a tour that becomes a confrontation.
• Standing brief. Who is in charge, what is in bounds, who to call for money, safety, or media. Captains carry this. The public schedule is a copy of it, not a separate creative product.

Holding the membership

Turnout is a relationship job, not a posting job. People come because someone they trust asked, and they stay because the line is livable.

• Ask people, not feeds. Captains and stewards call the people who are missing. A loud group chat with empty gates is a failure, not a success.
• Map who is missing. Use workplace mapping: department, shift, and who has not been seen. Do not assume night staff saw the morning post.
• Kill rumours in the huddle. Captains hear the rumour, the committee confirms or kills it, and one official FAQ carries the answer. Comment threads invent a second strike.
• Care is operations. Food, washrooms, weather, and dependents are why people can stay. They are not a branding opportunity.

Strike pay and hardship

Members will ask about money on day one. Answer with who decides, how to ask, and when to expect an answer — never with a number you cannot pay.

• Two different purses. Strike pay, if it exists, usually runs through the parent union. Local hardship is a different fund with different rules. Do not mix them in public.
• Facts members can use. Who decides, how to ask, and when an answer comes. If the amount is not confirmed, say so. A delayed honest answer beats a cheerful guess.
• Keep a record. Who asked, what you said, and who authorized it. Public posts are not the archive.
• Do not argue eligibility in public. Send the member to the hardship contact. A comment-thread eligibility fight humiliates people and invents policy.

Safety on the line

Emergency first, communications second. This is not a security manual. De-escalate, get people safe, then tell the named officers.

• Emergency first. If someone is hurt or in danger, follow emergency protocol. Do not film. Do not post. Comms wait until members are safe and leadership agrees on the facts.
• No dare posts. No livestreamed confrontations, no member home addresses, no challenges to cross the line on camera. Those posts put members at risk and help the employer.
• Same-hour escalation. Harassment, surveillance, or an injunction goes to president and servicing the same hour. Do not wait until the evening recap.
• De-escalate. Captains keep the line inside the brief. They do not chase vehicles, argue with replacement workers, or improvise a police strategy.

Allies support the line, not a media campaign

Other locals, community groups, and elected officials can help the line and the hardship path. They are not a substitute for members at the gate.

• One ask. Food, turnout at a named gate, or hardship support. A vague “show solidarity” leaves allies posting while the line stays thin.
• One coordinator. Allies talk to one named person. Five officers taking five different offers is how the committee loses the day.
• Same facts as members. Allies get the standing brief, not a special story. If it is not true for members, it is not true for a politician’s camera.

Two rhythms: internal and public

Captains need facts as often as the facts change, including “nothing changed.” The public needs one official place to look, updated when something actually changed.

• Internal rhythm. Committee, captains, and hardship: a short standing brief. Send it when facts change, and say so when they have not.
• Public rhythm. Sparse, approved, one channel of record. Crisis comms owns who may speak. This page does not set a posting quota.
• Captains before social. The people on the gate hear the facts before the Facebook group does. A public post that surprises captains is a split command.

Return to work is still the stoppage

The graphic coming down is not the end. The first shifts back are when retaliation shows up and rumours about “who won” start.

• Last-day brief. When the line comes down, who tells members, and what they should do on the first shift. Same facts at every gate.
• First-shift-back watch. Stewards know who to call if a supervisor fishes for strike stories or changes an assignment overnight.
• No-retaliation routing. Discipline and sudden schedule changes go to stewards and the grievance playbook. Do not litigate them in the Facebook group.

Worked morning: day one, 5:45 a.m.

The legal window opened overnight. Members are arriving in the dark. This is operations, not a press day.

1. 5:45 — captain no-show — Backup captain opens the named gate from the paper brief. Committee lead is told once, not in a group thread of twenty.
2. 6:00 — weather change — Move to the indoor fallback already on the brief. Same gate name. Do not invent a new location in a chat that night staff will miss.
3. 6:15 — employer flyer at the gate — Captain collects one copy for the committee. Members are told to ignore it until the official note. Nobody debates the flyer with a manager at the fence.
4. 6:30 — “Are we getting paid today?” — Captain gives the hardship facts from the brief: who decides, how to ask, when an answer comes. No invented amount.
5. 7:00 — committee confirms — Ten minutes: weather move, flyer in the file, hardship script unchanged. Then one public note with the same facts. Captains already have them.
6. 8:00 — the line is the meeting — Rotations hold. Rumours go to the huddle, not the comments. Media is sent to the spokesperson.

How locals lose a stoppage

These failures are more common than a bad graphic. Watch for them from day one.

• Split command. Two officers giving two briefs. Captains pick a side. Members pick a rumour. Name one committee.
• Promised money the local cannot pay. A number said out loud becomes policy. Use the hardship path. Do not guess.
• Empty gates, loud group. If the Facebook group is packed and the sidewalk is not, stop posting and start calling the people who are missing.
• Public contradiction. Two official posts with two facts. Stop public posting until executive and the committee align on one correction.
• Wildcat drift. A gate that “just stays” after a return order, or a department that walks without a mandate, puts members at legal risk. Call servicing the same hour.
• Return with no steward watch. The stoppage is not over because the graphic came down. First-shift retaliation is a grievance job, not a recap post.

What this guide is not

Keep jobs separate so members get the right playbook.

• Not the Crisis Comms Guide. Who may speak, photo consent, and management bait live there. This page runs the line.
• Not the bargaining clock. Strike votes, No Board, and ratification live on the Bargaining lifecycle guide. Do not announce dates from here.
• Not a green light for wildcats. Unauthorized stoppages put members and the local at risk. Stay inside the statutory path your Staff Representative confirms.
• Not a national strike protocol. Your union may have its own strike manual, pay rules, and legal team. Follow those. This page does not replace them.