As the SGEU strike action continues across the province, RCMP filling in for corrections officers have called in some reinforcements.

 

There are a number of unresolved issues and as a result more than 800 Saskatchewan corrections workers continue to be off the job as the SGEU walks the picket lines.

For more than week now Saskatchewan RCMP have been guarding jails and correctional facilities around the province. But now Sergeant Brad Kaeding with the RCMP says about 250 additional RCMP officers from Alberta and Manitoba will arrive here in Saskatchewan Thursday to help. "They will be working in the correctional facilities and allow the Saskatchewan members to go back to their home detachments and get back to a little more normal policing for them and to return their detachment shift schedules to a more normal schedule."

The additional RCMP from out-of-province should begin work in jails and correctional facilities Friday.

The positions the officers are filling in for are held by members of the SGEU. The 13 thousand-member union walked away from the bargaining table with the province last week as they try to hammer out a new contract with their employer.