Toronto - Maple Leaf Foods Inc's Hamilton-area bacon and wiener plant is back in business following a six-month lockout, after union workers ratified a four-year contract, the union said.
United Food and Commercial Workers union Local 617P members on Wednesday voted 78 percent in favor of the deal reached on March 20 and recommended by union negotiators. It includes wage increases of more than 10 percent over the four year contract and a C$1,000 signing bonus, improved life insurance, clothing and tool allowances and a pension plan.
Supervisors had been trying to run the Hamilton plant since December, while about 280 members of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union had been locked since October 4.
"I'm happy to see that there have been improvements in the deal. They never had a pension before," said Richard Pollock, secretary and treasurer of UFCW local 617P.
"Nobody ever gets exactly what they want, but both parties worked hard."
Some Hamilton workers are returning as early as Monday to gear up for processing pork carcasses into bacon and wieners.
The latest contract ends worries over several company threats, including deep pay cuts for 900 Burlington workers in order to keep the plant open.
Maple Leaf's Edmonton workers went on strike on November 17, and the company closed the plant 10 days later.
But Pollock said he isn't taking his hostile anti-Maple Leaf Meats message off his answering machine, until Saskatchewan's locked-out plant and Maple Leaf poultry woes are over.
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