Workers from across Metro Vancouver are rallying around the striking employees at Nico Wynd Estates in Surrey, B.C., after one of the owners struck their lead negotiator with a car in a deliberate attack on the picket line on October 31st.
Nico Wynd strata resident Sandy Greer hit Dallis Van Steinburg, rep for SEIU Local 2, in an incident that was caught on camera. According to Mike Greveling who was on the scene, she “claimed she was ‘defending her property’, had every right to run her down, and would do it again.” This workplace is no stranger to violent outbursts from management and this act of violence against workers on a picket is not an isolated incident.
A day after the incident, Nico Wynd groundskeeper Colby McNabb told The North Star that “even with the news of this aggressive, unwarranted, targeted assault,” the Nico Wynd strata council “is still talking about how maybe they can get back to negotiating November 9th.”
Van Steinburg is now forced to use a cane due to her injuries. She is currently resting to recover after being struck. However, she plans to stay on as the lead negotiator, saying “I ain’t going anywhere” to The North Star and expressed frustration with the new strata council for not promptly coming to the table.
There has been “violence in the workplace for years, so it has come to a head and the strata has still not stepped in,” she asserted, saying that she had urged the president to resume bargaining prior to the incident and warned him that “residents are becoming more aggressive and someone is going to get hurt.”
Community Rallies In Anger
A rally on Monday November 2nd, called by SEIU Local 2, mobilized hundreds of members and representatives from a number of unions and other local worker organizations to the defense of the picketers. Speakers at the rally noted that the fault for the attack lies squarely at the feet of the employer, who has refused to come to the bargaining table for over a month now.
Ricky Baryer, President of ILWU Local 500, stated in a post after attending the rally that “there is no neutrality in a labour dispute. You either stand with workers fighting for dignity, or you stand with the employers trying to take it away. To SEIU Local 2… the ILWU has your back.”
Alongside him, ralliers came from the Canadian Animation Guild, MoveUp, the United Food & Commercial Workers Local 1518, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 213, the BC Federation of Labour, the East Van Workers Assembly, and the United Steelworkers Local 7619 who are also on strike at the Highland Valley Copper Mine near Logan Lake, B.C.
Justin, a teacher who attended the rally as a member of The East Van Workers Assembly (EVWA), explained to The North Star how important it is for workers to show up in solidarity for one another. He mentioned that they had visited the Nico Wynd picket back in October and that, compared to then “they were much, much angrier than they had been, and understandably so.”
SEIU is hosting another solidarity picket and BBQ on November 7th at Nico Wynd to maintain the momentum.
Growing Trend of Violence Against Workers
Justin recounted that a striking worker at Vancouver’s Arbutus Club was also run over by a patron of the golf course while they were trying to defend their picket line in May 2025. Last November, a Pascan Aviation manager also tried to ram striking flight attendants on a picket line in Saint Hubert, Quebec.
Other recent violent attacks against striking workers in Canada include a September 2025 bear spray attack on BCGEU members in Victoria, B.C. and Canada Post withdrawing insurance from cancer-stricken workers to put pressure on them during their 2024 strike.
Meanwhile, according to a University of Regina report, rates of workplace injury and death have risen since 2020. 1,042 workers died in 2024 due to provenly work-related causes, and this is likely an undercount according to a 2018 paper published by The Canadian Committee on Labour History. The EVWA has held an independent Day of Mourning rally in Vancouver for the last two years to protest this loss of limb and life.
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