WINNIPEG – Farmers who deliver grain to Manitoba Pool Elevators can breathe a sigh of relief.
Grain Services Union members at the elevators have ratified a new collective bargaining agreement to take them through to 1998. The union and company have been negotiating since January 1995.
Union spokesperson Garnet Lee said the company was “more flexible” after workers took a strike vote in April.
Lee noted workers did not set a date to strike, but wanted to send the pool a message of dissatisfaction.
“I don’t think farmers noticed any difference when we were in negotiation,” added Manitoba Pool’s chief executive officer Greg Arason. “There was never any disruption of service and I think that’s the thing that farmers would have noticed.”
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The spectre of elevator closures and other major grain industry changes loomed over the negotiations.
“The system’s going to get smaller real quick,” Lee said. “Especially Manitoba. We’re the exporter of grain that’s the furthest from a port in the world.”
Lee said there have been many changes in the grain industry during the past year and a half, including the end of the Crow Benefit transportation subsidy.
“When a management works under a regulated system for years and years, and then it changes, … you’re not exactly sure what to do initially, or how it’s going to affect you or your employees,” he said.
Fewer elevators mean Manitoba Pool’s country workers face fewer job opportunities and changing job descriptions, Lee said.
“A lot of our guys were hired when we were still in the boom part of the grain business and were told, in six months or two years or three years, you’ll be an elevator manager.”
He said one of the union’s main accomplishments during bargaining was to get workers more options when an elevator closes.
Before, they remained on pay for six months. Now, they have the option of bumping into entry level positions.
Seniority change
Meanwhile, Manitoba Pool will have more freedom to choose elevator managers, Arason said.
Lee explained if two people bid on an elevator manager job, the company now does not have to choose the person with more seniority.
If the union wants to grieve the company’s decision, it must now prove the person who was not selected was at least as qualified as the person who won.
Lee said he has “caught a lot of flak” from workers over the changes to seniority, but said it was the best the union could do given industry changes.
