WINNIPEG (Staff) – About 800 workers at the Burns Meats plant in Winnipeg voted to accept a new union agreement May 26, averting a strike which was scheduled to start May 27.
The workers had voted to strike last week, but a United Food and Commercial Workers spokesperson said a new agreement improves wages and job security.
Bernard Christophe, president of Local 832 of the union, said wage increases will total 90 cents per hour.
“The first 25 cents of the increase is retroactive to April 1 of this year,” he said in a news release.
Wage increases
The deal calls for an additional 30 cents per hour increase on April 1 of next year and a further increase of 35 cents per hour on April 1, 1998.
Other changes for the company include:
- No contracting out work normally performed by bargaining unit members.
- Increased contributions to the pension plan.
- Increased contributions to the dental plan.
- More senior workers transferred from night shifts to day shifts.
- Expedited arbitration of grievances.
The new agreement will be valid until March 31, 1999.
