About three dozen striking workers were hanging about outside NDP Leader Jack Layton's morning event in Regina today.

Layton was at a breakfast event at the popular Freehouse pub (beer was not served).

The striking workers are members of the Grain Services Union. They work for Viterra — the largest grain-handling company in Canada.

The pickets anxiously watched the Jack Layton bus circle the parking lot they were standing in, hoping, one said, that Layton would emerge.

Now, in years gone by, it wouldn't have been unusual at all for an NDP leader to have made a point of meeting with the striking workers, perhaps with cameras in tow. But not this time, and not for Jack Layton.

Although Layton did meet with the strikers, he did it quietly, privately, and long after the media accompanying his tour had boarded the campaign bus.

— James Cudmore