Negotiations aimed at ending a strike at Canada’s second-largest grain company have broken off.
Representatives from Agricore and the Grain Services Union were meeting in a downtown Winnipeg hotel Nov. 21-22 to try to resolve differences that have prevented them from reaching a first-ever collective agreement.
But as the publication deadline passed for this issue, federal mediator Tom Hodges said the two sides were too far apart for the talks to continue.
Company officials cited wages and seniority as the two most contentious issues.
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Union officials could not be reached.
More than 320 elevator and agro-centre workers represented by the GSU have been on strike in Manitoba since Nov. 9.
Last week they were joined by a number of elevator workers in Alberta and the Peace River region of British Columbia. The union said more than 30 GSU members walked out at 13 elevators, while management said 20 workers were off the job and only three elevators had been closed as a result of the job action. Several other elevators in the province were also closed due to walkouts or lockouts.
The union also took its message to the heart of Winnipeg’s grain district, setting up a picket line outside Agricore’s head office near the corner of Portage and Main. Union officials met with farmers and Agricore members at several meetings in rural Manitoba. GSU general secretary Hugh Wagner said the union welcomed the opportunity to explain the workers’ side of the dispute.
“Farmers are asking us what they can do to help,” he said in a Nov. 18 news release. “They want to see the dispute resolved in a way that benefits rural communities and they don’t want to see workers make all the concessions.”
Agricore spokesperson Diane Wreford said between 30 and 35 of the company’s 106 Manitoba elevators were open for business as the week began, staffed by management personnel, non-union employees brought in from Alberta and some GSU members.
While pickets were causing some delays, she said, the company was meeting its shipping schedules.
“Deliveries are probably not normal, but at some points they’re above normal. There are people obviously trying to show that they support what we’re doing.”
GSU spokesperson Adriane Paavo said that with only about 22 of the GSU’s 350 elevator workers reporting for work, it’s hard to see how the company could be providing normal service at 30 to 35 elevators.
“It’s one thing to open the doors of an elevator; it’s another thing to staff it with people who know how to provide the services farmers have come to expect,” she said.
Some Western Producer staff, including the writer, are members of a separate local of the Grain Services Union.
