Meat processing giant JBS is expected to buy the troubled XL Foods at Brooks, Alta., but union officials hope it enters the deal with openness and a strong food safety mandate.
“We endorse it with caution because like anything, the proof is in the pudding. JBS is going to have to come in here and prove they can run the plant,” said Doug O’Halloran, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 401.
“In order to do that they are going to have to reach out to the workers who know best what is needed, the things that need to be done and the things that need to change,” he said yesterday at a news conference in Brooks.
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The Alberta Federation of Labour said the longer the plant remains closed and concerns remain over food contamination on an international scale, the more damage is inflicted on the beef industry.
“When you are running a facility this large, you need experience, you need expertise and JBS certainly has that. However, when it comes to food safety, a new owner doesn’t necessarily mean a new day,” said AFL president Gil McGowan.
The plant has been closed since Sept 27 and the UFCW and AFL have requested a public investigation.
A public letter dated Oct. 18 to Alberta premier Alison Redford requested a public inquiry into what went wrong, even though it is a federal responsibility to deal with the widespread food recalls due to E. coli contamination in meat processed more than a month ago.
The inquiry needs to question the ability of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency to adequately do its job as government further cuts its budget and it needs to learn what went wrong at the facility, the letter said.
“XL has not done a good job. Nilsson brothers, I believe, didn’t know 50 percent of what was going on in that plant or else they couldn’t allow these things to happen,” said O’Halloran in reference to company owners Brian and Lee Nilsson.
He claims upper management dismissed concerns from food inspectors and said those people should be removed once JBS is installed.
JBS is the world’s largest meat processor with headquarters in Brazil and plants in the Untied States, Australia and Argentina.
XL hired it to manage the company and JBS has promised to call all the laid off workers back on the job and it will honour the union contract, which expires at the end of 2013.
