Chicago - Striking meat cutters at the Quality Meat Packers Ltd pork plant in Ontario will vote Friday on a new contract offer that union negotiators have recommended be accepted, a union official said.
“We will vote tomorrow. The negotiating committee has recommended that it be accepted,” said Bryan Neath, Ontario director of the United Food and Commercials Workers union.
Passage of the contract would end an eight-week strike that has idled the plant and forced many Canadian hogs into the United States that contributed to already-sliding U.S. hog prices. The family-owned plant can slaughter 26,000 hogs per week and has about 800 employees.
Results of the vote would be available Friday evening, said Neath. If approved, workers would probably return to work on Wednesday, he said.
The latest contract offer, which was similar to a contract accepted in March, 1998 at Maple Leaf Foods Inc., was presented to the union Tuesday and would reduce wages by C$3.00 to C$6.00 per hour. The greatest rollback would mean a worker earning C$16.72 per hour would, under the proposal, receive C$10.40 an hour, Neath said.
However, the offer includes three lump sum cash payments to employees, Neath said. The first would be two weeks after passage and would be based on years of service with a minimum sum of $3,500 to a maximum $20,000, said Neath.
A second payment, based on the difference between the new wage and the previous wage earned over a 10-week period, would be paid 10 weeks into the new contract. A $1,000 third payment would be made June 1.
“If the strike lasted much longer, the company would go out of business. The people are now realizing they are going to get absolutely nothing or take this and run,” said Neath.
Hog futures at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange moved sharply higher late Thursday as talk reached traders of the union's recommendation and upcoming vote. Reopening the plant would lessen the number of Canadian hogs entering the U.S.
The National Pork Producers Council said the strike was partly responsible for low U.S. hog prices in December, because Canadian hogs normally processed at the Ontario plant were shipped to the U.S., competing with an abundance of U.S. hogs.
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