Locked-out workers at a Moose Jaw, Sask., packing plant could soon be heading back to work, but there may not be much work there for them.
Tai Wan Pork Inc. and the Retail Wholesale and Department Store Union local 455 have reached a tentative agreement.
Officials on both sides of the labor dispute refused to comment on the details of the agreement until the union’s membership voted on it.
The ratification vote was scheduled for a time too late for this week’s issue, but RWDSU representative Brian Haughey said he expects the union members to vote in favor of the agreement.
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“Generally they will go with the recommendation of the bargaining committee, so I’d be surprised if it wasn’t accepted.”
Haughey said 190 unionized workers have been locked out of the packing plant since Aug. 5, 1999. The plant has been shut down for the duration of the dispute.
Hog buyer Trey Vincent is ecstatic to hear that the long-running dispute could soon be over. Tai Wan Pork had been custom killing hogs for Tri-city Meats (the U.S. company Vincent represents) for years.
“We couldn’t be happier. We tried everything we could to bring everybody together.”
But don’t expect business as usual, said Vincent. Buyers like him have had to seek out other packing plants to fill their orders and it may be quite some time before they return to Tai Wan Pork.
His company is locked into contracts with packers in Alberta and in the United States. He said the time that he lost setting up the alternative arrangements might have cost him this year’s profit.
Vincent said the timing of the labor dispute couldn’t have been worse. With the opening of the Maple Leaf plant in Brandon, Tai Wan Pork is facing fierce competition for live hogs.
When workers were first locked out the Brandon plant wasn’t buying any hogs. Now it is purchasing about 40,000 hogs a week.
Vincent said Tai Wan Pork might have a tough time convincing Saskatchewan producers to stop shipping their hogs to Manitoba.
“If you get off the carousel, getting back on is a little tough sometimes, especially if it’s already full and the other guys are sort of big and tough and don’t want to let you on.”
SPI Marketing Group general manager Don Hrapchak agrees. He said Tai Wan Pork used to process 18 percent of SPI’s hogs. Most of those hogs are now being shipped east instead of north to Mitchell’s Gourmet Foods in Saskatoon.
And he said Maple Leaf and Schneiders aren’t about to loosen their grip on those new customers. Just because the workers may be coming back doesn’t mean the hogs will follow, said Hrapchak.
