Union pickets on Tuesday denied committing or threatening to commit any crimes while striking, answering complaints made in a temporary restraining order that went into effect Monday afternoon.

At least eight people, all Bobcat employees, signed affidavits saying pickets temporarily prevented them from entering the property. Five of them said their cars were struck by objects or pickets, and one witness said a police officer directed their car around nails in the road.

United Steel Workers Local 566 also denied causing injury or risk of injury to anyone employed by Bobcat, according to a court document filed by the union and other defendants, in answering an order to show cause made by Judge Sonna Anderson in South Central District Court.

The union document did say, however, that employees of Bobcat may have been delayed a few seconds when arriving at work in the first days of the strike.

"We're making it a peaceful demonstration," said Steve Chmielewski, union president. He had no further comment regarding the complaints.

On Monday, Anderson signed the temporary restraining order sought by Bobcat against the union and several other defendants, prohibiting them from being on property owned by Bobcat, interfering with business, obstructing traffic, engaging in mass picketing, damaging property, threatening violence and picketing with dangerous materials.

But Anderson struck from the restraining order a clause that would have restricted those on strike to only three pickets at any one time at any entrance to the plant.

The temporary restraining order is in place until Oct. 18, when the union is scheduled to show cause as to why the order should not be continued, according to court documents.

Local Union 566 went on strike Saturday after negotiations for a four-year contract with the Bismarck Bobcat plant hit a standstill. The union's previous four-year contract with Bobcat expired at 7 a.m. Saturday.

Both sides had been in negotiations for weeks before the strike, but an agreement could not be reached on several issues, including wage increases and health insurance costs.

Chmielewski said the union has not been contacted about resuming talks.

The Bismarck plant, which makes machinery for light construction, has about 1,100 employees, including 300 salaried, nonunion workers. Bobcat, a unit of Ingersoll-Rand Co. Ltd., is the city's sixth-largest employer, according to the Chamber.

(Reach reporter Crystal Reid at 250-8261 or at crystal.reid@;bismarcktrib-une.com)