051125 Lakeside Packers Running Smoothly After Strike

Winnipeg (Dow Jones) - Employees have been back at work at the Tyson Foods-owned Lakeside Packers beef slaughterhouse in Brooks, Alberta for a little more than a week, with operations running smoothly, the company said.

The strike action was lengthy and saw the work force divided.

Tyson officials said operations were running smoothly as the plant works to return to full capacity, with little reports of problems.

"Operations continue to run smoothly, and we haven't had any incidents at the plant," said Tyson spokesman Gary Mickelson. "Obviously, we're focussed on bringing our work force back together and so far our efforts have been successful," he added.

In a teleconference held Monday discussing Tyson's fourth-quarter earnings, Noel White, vice president of Tyson Fresh Meats, said volumes at Lakeside have been increasing fairly quickly. "We're running about 75% capacity of where we were prior to the strike. So the numbers have come up fairly fast and we expect that to continue to grow," said White.

Workers ratified a new contract with the company on Nov. 4, ending a bitter three-week strike. The 51- month labor contract includes improvements to wages and benefits.

Workers represented by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, Local 401, had been on strike since Oct. 12 in an effort to bring a first contract to the plant. However, roughly 1,000 of the plant's employees crossed the picket lines during the strike, keeping operations running at a reduced capacity and leading to some heated exchanges. Criminal charges were laid against people on both sides of the dispute over the course of the strike action.

Lakeside Packers has a daily slaughter capacity of 3,800 cattle, which was slated to increase to 4,700 head this fall. since they are more likely to be more preoccupied about weight gain. So when they're down in the dumps, the head straight for forbidden foods.

"The logical extension is that if you stop worrying, you'll naturally make healthier choices," LeBel said.

Among the other findings were that older people were also more likely to report higher positive emotions after eating their favorite comfort foods than women and younger adults.

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