Maple Leaf may be able to relax after settling contract battles with several hundred unionized workers at plants across Canada, but one industry analyst says it may have sparked a fire that could spread throughout the meat packing business.
“This of course has ramifications now for the rest of the industry,” said Kevin Grier, editor of the Canada Pork Market Review, about deals reached at Maple Leaf’s Ontario plants in Burlington and Hamilton and at North Battleford, Sask., last week.
“Now everyone else is going to say ‘me too.’ It will filter through with companies saying they’ve got to be competitive with Maple Leaf.”
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When the contract between workers and Quality Meat Packers in Ontario came up for review last year, the company froze the old deal for one year pending the outcome of Maple Leaf’s negotiations, he said.
“Fletchers (Fine Foods) in Red Deer (Alta.) is negotiating now and apparently Maple Leaf’s contracts have already been thrown on the table, (with the company) saying this is the new reality here.”
Grier said the deals will likely have an impact on contract talks with workers in the beef and chicken processing industry as well.
Four Maple Leaf plants were locked in bitter labor disputes with more than 2,000 members of the United Food and Commercial Workers union, some since last summer.
The battle ended two weeks ago, when workers at the bacon and wiener processing plants in North Battleford, Sask., and Hamilton, Ont., accepted agreements.
Lower wage accepted
A few weeks earlier, 900 pork-processing workers in Burlington, Ont. voted by a narrow margin to accept the company’s final offer, which included wage rollbacks of up to $9 an hour, after the company threatened to close the plant.
In Edmonton, the fourth plant where workers were protesting, Maple Leaf closed the plant. Up to 750 workers were handed termination notices Nov. 27.
The UFCW said workers in Hamilton and North Battleford won important concessions on some of the top non-monetary issues.
Maple Leaf agreed to provide workers in Hamilton with a pension plan and in North Battleford, secured job postings in the plant are now part of the new four-year collective agreement.
The deal provides North Battleford workers with wage increases of more than 12 percent over four years.
About 300 members of Local 617P in Hamilton voted on a deal that includes wage increases of more than 10 percent over the four year contract and a $1,000 signing bonus, improved life insurance, clothing and tool allowances and a pension plan.
UFCW spokesperson Cheryl Mumford said the two agreements bring employee wages more in line with the company’s Burlington, Ont. , plant.
Workers there voted 56 percent in favor of an agreement that cuts wages by up to 40 percent. The company threatened to close the plant if the deal was rejected.
But workers there were making about $16.50 per hour, compared to $9.50 in Hamilton and around $10 in North Battleford, Mumford said.
