A year long labour dispute at Lakeside Packers in Brooks, Alta., will come to a head at the end of September.
When it does, the 2,400 workers at the plant will either have a first contract, be on strike or be locked out of their jobs.
Union and management officials received copies of a provincial mediator’s report Sept. 19 and have 10 days to accept or reject the recommendations.
If the two sides don’t both accept the report as written, then the union will be in a legal position to strike and the company to lock out employees.
Read Also
Stacking Canada up on gene editing livestock
Canada may want to gauge how Argentina and other countries have approached gene editing in livestock and what that has meant for local innovation.
Neither side was willing to predict what might happen.
“The report is there and our negotiating committee will spend a few days going through it,” said Doug O’Halloran, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 401, which represents workers at the Brooks plant.
“I don’t want to speculate at this point on what’s in it, or what might happen.”
An official with Arkansas-based Tyson Foods, which owns Lakeside, said the company will “carefully review” the recommendations before making any comments or decisions.
Mediator John Moreau was appointed by the provincial labour minister to try to mediate a settlement in mid-July, just hours before the union was set to go on strike to back up its efforts to negotiate a first contract with Tyson.
Moreau met with both sides individually and held one session with both sides present, but was unable to bring them to an agreement.
O’Halloran said he fears that all the appointment of the mediator has accomplished has been to delay the inevitable.
“We’d have had a strike, the strike would be over by now and we’d have a good contract,” he said.
“Now it’s all been delayed and if the report’s not good, we’re going to be on strike around Oct. 1, back where we started.”
