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A 51-year-old worker at Alcan Canada Products Ltd. was...

TORONTO -- A 51-year-old worker at Alcan Canada Products Ltd. was killed by a truck that drove through picket lines at the company's strike-bound Toronto plant.

Claude Dougdeen, a shipper at the company for more than seven years, was on the picket line early Saturday when trucks hired by the company to pick up goods at the eastend plant plowed through the strikers.

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The father of seven was dragged about 30 feet along the asphalt by one of the tractor trailers and died later in hospital. Dougheen's 19-year-old son James, laid off at the plant a year ago, witnessed the accident.

'One truck saw us and stopped, but the other didn't,' said one of the five men on the picket line with Dougdeen at the time. 'All I saw was James jump out of the way.'

The company contracted Roclar Cartage Inc. to move materials from the plant for the first time since the legal strike began three weeks ago.

Police said no charges were laid in connection with the incident.

Company vice president Robert Maheu said the death came 'as a severe shock to the company.

About 90 members of the United Steelworkers of America have been on strike for higher wages at the plant since March 21. The union rejected a company two-year contract offer of a 55-cent-an-hour increase for the first year and 45 cents-an-hour in the second year. The plant's basic wage is about $8.45 an hour. The workers have been without a contract since Dec. 31.

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