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Alberta Justice says workers intimidated by union

Alberta Justice has released a statement saying striking corrections workers in the province are beginning to return to work, saying that workers feel 'intimidated' by their own union.

"It has been our hope that the job action would be resolved quickly," reads the statement, "and this appears to be happening."

"Some of you have returned to work, and others have said they would like to return to work but feel intimidated," the release continues.

"We are aware of these union pressure tactics, which include misinformation being distributed. We can report, however, that picketing activities have substantially declined throughout the province."

However, as CBC's Briar Stewart reports, around 70 corrections officers are still picketing outside the Edmonton Remand Centre — and don't appear to be leaving any time soon.

Their numbers have also been bolstered by corrections officers from Saskatchewan who arrived by bus earlier in the day to support the striking workers. Several Edmonton sheriffs have also now joined the picketers outside the centre.

Sheriffs from Calgary and Edmonton said they would join the striking corrections workers on Monday, said Clarke McChesney, the chair for Alberta Union of Provincial Employees (AUPE) Local 003.

He said he expects other sherrifs across the province will join them.

Earlier Sunday, AUPE said that corrections workers at remand centres in Medicine Hat and Red Deer have decided to return to work.

CBC News has also learned that Calgary police are in meetings all day, as they prepare for the possibility of strike action continuing on Monday.

Thirteen striking guards at Edmonton’s remand centre — where Friday’s strike action first began — have now been served with court papers ordering them to return to work.

So far the guards at that centre are refusing to obey the orders, which were delivered around 1:30 a.m. MT Sunday morning.

RCMP officers have now been called in from Saskatchewan to help maintain order at correctional facilities.

However, a lawyer for the provincial government said Saturday that the centres are still understaffed.

Robin Southcombe is an inmate at the Fort Saskatchewan Correctional Centre northeast of Edmonton.

She describes the mood at that facility as “tense” on the women's side, but says that things are much worse on the men’s side of the prison, where inmates had been kicking and punching the walls and windows of their cells.

"They had to pull out a lot of men on the units because ... they're trying to start riots on each unit,” she said Saturday. “But the women are doing OK. We have one RCMP and some other lady here who's in white but I don't know, we've never seen them before."

Southcombe says that RCMP officers have now had to go in unit by unit and shackle inmates in their cells.

"Right now I feel, really, it's like on eggshells right now, it's very on edge."

She says the male prisoners have been acting out in response to delays in the delivery of meals and medicine.

The last time Alberta prison guards walked off the job was for nine days, nearly a quarter century ago. And for now, the guards union is saying this strike will continue until their concerns are addressed.