030627 Maple Leaf Food Workers Accept Deal

Winnipeg, Manitoba - After one day on the picket lines, 660 workers at the Maple Leaf Foods Inc. pork-cut plant in Winnipeg will start to return to work, union president Robert Ziegler said.

Members of the United Food and Commercial Workers union voted 65 percent on Tuesday to ratify a new five-year contract, Ziegler said.

Workers had been locked out of the plant, which processes 30,000 to 35,000 hogs per week, after they narrowly rejected the deal on Sunday night at a boisterous meeting disrupted by some union members, Ziegler said in an interview with CBC Radio.

"When (the first vote) was over, we had a lot of complaints, people saying, 'I was heckled too much ... I didn't understand the contract.' It was overwhelming," Ziegler said, explaining why the union held a second vote on Tuesday.

"We took the time (at the Tuesday meeting), and everyone showed people all the respect they deserved, and that's why the contract was ratified," he said.

With the contract approved, the company expects to be running at full capacity by early next week, the plant's director of operations, Steve Malinowski, said.

The carcasses come from several small slaughter plants in the province, most of which had shut down by Tuesday.

The contract will give workers an average of 8.9 percent higher wages, a union spokesman said, along with better benefits.

But 80 of the highest-paid workers will see wage roll-backs as the contract streamlined rates, he said. The workers can choose a buy-out instead, he added.

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