The GSU announced the decision today, saying the support wasn’t overwhelming but enough to accept the offer. Local 1 voted 63 percent in favour and Local 2 voted 68 percent to accept.

“Members of Local 1 and 2 have been living under the company’s so-called pay-for-performance system for 15 years now,” said general secretary Steve Torgerson.

“While the changes in the final offer achieve part of what members were looking to gain, it doesn’t go far enough.”

He said members have set their sights on more improvements in the next contract.

“It is important to point out that there are improvements gained in this deal,” he said.

Local 1 represents country operations and maintenance while Local 2 is Regina head office. In total they represent 436 workers.

Union members had voted in favour of strike action earlier this month but on Jan. 5 the company presented another offer and a vote was conducted over the last couple of weeks.

The offer included salary increases over four years, starting with 4.5 percent retroactive to Jan. 1, 2023, then 3.75 percent effective Jan. 1, 2024, and 2.5 percent in the next two years.

The union had been asking for improved work-life balance and workplace respect as well as fair wages.

—Karen Briere writes for the Western Producer from Saskatchewan.

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The B.C. Maritime Employers Association said in a release Thursday morning it had reached a tentative pact with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU Canada) on a new four-year collective agreement “that recognizes the skills and efforts of B.C.’s waterfront workforce.”

The deal ending a 13-day strike came after federal Labour Minister Seamus O’Regan on Tuesday night tasked federally appointed mediators with drafting terms for a new agreement based on progress made in talks to date.

O’Regan had set a deadline of Thursday evening for the union and management to decide whether the mediator’s terms were acceptable.

He and federal Transport Minister Omar Alghabra, in a joint statement Thursday, said the ILWU and BCMEA are now “finalizing details for the resumption of work at the ports.”

BCMEA said Thursday morning it’s “committed to working closely with ILWU Canada and their locals and supply chain partners to safely resume operations as soon as possible.”

Thanking federal mediator Peter Simpson and his team as well as O’Regan for their help in reaching the tentative deal, the employer group said it “recognizes and regrets the significant impact this labour disruption has had on the economy, businesses, workers, customers and ultimately, all Canadians.”

Parties at Vancouver and Prince Rupert now “must collectively work together to not only restore cargo operations as quickly and safely as possible but to also rebuild the reputation of Canada’s largest gateway and ensure supply chain stability and resilience for the future,” BCMEA said.

O’Regan and Alghabra, in their statement Thursday, concurred that the scale of the disruption at the West Coast has been “significant” and “has shown just how important the relationship between industry and labour is to our national interest. Our supply chains and our economy depend on it.”

Service for bulk grain vessels and cruise ships at B.C.’s ports was exempt from this work stoppage. However, several farmer and ag industry groups had publicly called for federal action to end the strike, as containerized pulse crops, perishables such as meat and produce, fertilizer and other goods were potentially at risk from delays.

Past that, Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters (CME) said in a separate release Thursday the strike “has caused severe backlogs that will take weeks to process. The damage to manufacturing supply chains is significant, as production slowed in the lead-up to the strike and will take even more time to get back up and running.”

CME said it’s been estimated that a day of a port shutdown takes up to a week to make up, “meaning it will take months for the sector to recover.”

O’Regan and Alghabra emphasized Thursday that “deals like this, made between parties at the collective bargaining table…are the best way to preserve the long-term stability of Canada’s economy” and “we do not want to be back here again.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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CN, in a statement Monday, said the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) System Council 11, which represents about 750 of the company’s employees across the country, had agreed to take its labour dispute to binding arbitration.

The strike is to end just after midnight ET Tuesday, and affected employees are to return to their jobs starting at 7 a.m. ET Wednesday, CN said.

Federal Labour Minister Seamus O’Regan, in a tweet Monday afternoon, thanked federal mediators for helping the company and union reach an agreement to end the strike.

CN, in Monday’s statement, also thanked “management employees and contractors” for working to allow railway operations to “continue uninterrupted” over the past two and a half weeks.

As of Monday afternoon the IBEW hasn’t yet made a statement about the strike ending, but said June 29 its members had been “substituted by replacement (scab) [sic] workers from both Canada and the U.S.”

That move “should concern everyone in our country, as it opens the door for unqualified people operating and maintaining our rail safety across Canada,” IBEW International vice-president Russ Shewchuk said in a June 29 statement.

IBEW members at CN install and maintain signals and trackside equipment, including the warning systems at railroad-highway crossings.

Shewchuk had called CN’s use of substitute workers “another prime example of the importance of federal anti-scab legislation (which would) prevent the employer from using replacement, and likely unqualified, workers.”

After IBEW members went on strike June 18, CN said its “operational contingency plan… allows the company to maintain a normal level of safe rail operations across Canada and serve its customers for as long as required.” The company had also said at the time it was open to binding arbitration if need be.

The most recent strike to halt CN rail service took place in 2019, when the company’s Teamster-led conductors and yard workers went on strike for eight days.

The IBEW’s previous five-year agreement with CN expired at the end of 2021.

After the two sides went to bargaining last fall, the railway “refused the union’s request for a fair and reasonable wage increase over a span of three years,” IBEW System Council 11 chairman Steve Martin said in a statement June 18.

Meanwhile, he said, the IBEW was “compromising on many union issues, and even acquiescing to company demands to increase the amount of interprovincial travel and the time a member spends away from their home and family.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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The 140-odd workers, represented by United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 401, voted Feb. 1-2 on a new proposal from the company after voting 79 per cent in December to reject a previous offer.

The revised offer, which tacks a sixth year onto the deal, was accepted by a vote of 65 per cent, UFCW lead negotiator Chris O’Halloran said in a release.

The workers’ previous contract expired at the end of August 2019; the new six-year deal is retroactive to Sept. 1 that year and runs through to the end of September 2024.

“A 65 per cent acceptance shows that our members thought carefully about what was on the table,” O’Halloran said in UFCW’s release. It “says to the company that we were able to get it done this time, but they are on notice that they need to better right off the bat next time.”

The union’s bargaining committee had recommended in late January that workers vote in favour of the revised deal — and noted that if the second deal were to be rejected, the union would start the process to hold a strike vote.

The new offer moved money from the later years of the previous offer, providing for increases of 2.25 per cent in the first year, 2.75 per cent in the second year, three per cent in the third and 2.5 per cent in each of the following three years. The new deal also provided for increased pension contributions from the company.

Supplying customers in Canada and the U.S. as well as other export markets, Winnipeg-based Richardson’s Lethbridge plant has capacity to handle up to 700,000 tonnes of canola per year, following a $120 million expansion in 2017.

The Lethbridge plant includes a packaging facility at which canola oil is bottled and margarine and shortening are packaged. Its products are sold under the Canola Harvest and Wesson brands and to private-label and foodservice customers.

Richardson’s other oilseed facilities include its canola crush and refining plant at Yorkton, Sask. and its margarine plant at Oakville, Ont. –– Glacier FarmMedia Network

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The Teamsters Canada Rail Conference (TCRC), which represents about 3,000 CP employees in those categories, said strike ballots were being distributed to members starting Feb. 1, with the balloting period to start Friday and run to Feb. 21.

In a release Thursday, the union said it expects to have the results of its vote in hand by the end of the month.

The union’s negotiating committee had said in a memo to local chairs in December that it would file a “notice of dispute” with the federal labour ministry regarding its talks with Calgary-based CP.

Labour Minister Seamus O’Regan named a conciliator/mediator from his department’s Federal Mediation and Conciliation Services (FMCS) to support the negotiation process, the union said Thursday.

Teamster and CP representatives were scheduled to have taken part in meetings with the FMCS conciliator Tuesday to Thursday in Calgary.

Legally, the union noted, a work stoppage can only happen following a 21-day “cooling-off” period after the conciliation process is completed.

The “main issues at hand” in the Teamsters’ dispute with CP are wages, benefits, and pensions, the union said.

CP’s latest collective bargaining agreement with its Teamster-led conductors, engineers, trainmen and yardmen expired at the end of 2021. That four-year deal was reached after a one-day strike in May 2018.

The contract leading up to the 2018 strike was itself reached after a one-day strike in February 2015, ending when the union and company went to binding arbitration. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 401, which represents about 140 workers at the Lethbridge plant, said Monday its members had voted 79 per cent to reject the offer.

The workers’ previous contract expired at the end of August 2019; the union and company had agreed during earlier talks to seek a five-year contract taking it through to Aug. 31, 2024.

Votes were held in Lethbridge Dec. 16 and online Dec. 17, after the company put forward “what they describe as their last best and final offer,” UFCW said Dec. 10.

UFCW spokesperson Chris O’Halloran, in the union’s Dec. 10 notice, said there’s “never as much money in one of these offers as we would like.”

The union said Monday it will now apply to go to mediation, emphasizing that process is meant to help parties “clarify their positions and reach a compromise.”

Mediation would continue for at least two days before the union can ask the provincially appointed mediator to “write out” — that is, provide non-binding recommendations in the event that talks don’t produce a deal.

Once a mediator writes out, UFCW said Dec. 10, a 14-day mandatory cooling-off period follows, during which time the union “will schedule and hold a strike vote.”

That said, the union added Monday it also “will be looking to return to the bargaining table to see if the company will improve their offer.”

Supplying customers in Canada and the U.S. as well as other export markets, Winnipeg-based Richardson’s Lethbridge plant has capacity to handle up to 700,000 tonnes of canola per year, following a $120 million expansion in 2017.

The Lethbridge plant includes a packaging facility at which canola oil is bottled and margarine and shortening are packaged. Its products are sold under the Canola Harvest and Wesson brands and to private-label and foodservice customers.

Richardson’s other oilseed facilities include its canola crush and refining plant at Yorkton, Sask. and its margarine plant at Oakville, Ont. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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“The contract is the best of its kind and presented unprecedented gains in this time of economic and political uncertainty,” United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 401 said Saturday in a statement.

“A victory has been won and this is a day to celebrate.”

Last month, the 2,000-plus employees at the High River facility south of Calgary voted heavily in favour of going on strike and the union had set Dec. 6 as their planned strike date. The workers later voted to reject an offer from Cargill that prompted the company to issue a lockout notice, also due to take effect Monday.

However, a new agreement was hammered out after “marathon” negotiations and the union recommended that its members voted in favour.

The UFCW-represented workers voted 71 per cent in favour of the new agreement, the company and union said in separate statements Saturday.

In addition to a 21 per cent wage increase (a $5/hour hike) over the life of the contract, the union also said many workers would receive more than $6,000 in bonuses — up to $4,200 in retroactive pay, a $1,000 signing bonus, and a $1,000 “COVID-19 bonus.”

The virus overshadowed the negotiations, which followed in the wake of two major outbreaks at the High River plant. The first in April 2020 resulted in a two-week shutdown, with half of the workforce reportedly infected by the virus. Two employees died after contracting COVID-19.

“As the site of North America’s largest COVID-19 outbreak, it has been a challenging time for the workers and their families,” UFCW Local 401 said in its statement. “The Cargill High River plant saw hundreds of workers grow ill, suffer, experience terror, and even die.”

The plant has capacity to slaughter about 4,500 cattle per day, about 36 per cent of Canada’s domestic beef processing capacity.

“We are pleased to have reached an agreement that is comprehensive, fair, and reflective of (the employees’) commitment to excellence at Cargill and the critical role they play in feeding families across Canada,” Jarrod Gillig, the company’s business operations and supply chain president for its North American protein lines, said in an emailed statement after the ratification was announced.

“As an organization that leads with our value to put people first, we truly believe this ratification is in the best interests of our employees and we are eager to move forward to build a stronger future — together.”

As for UFCW, it said it will now focus on the country’s other big processing plant, the JBS facility at Brooks.

“In Brooks, 2,500 employees who process beef at the JBS plant are watching the Cargill precedent carefully,” it said. “In the New Year, we head into bargaining for their new contract.”

— Glenn Cheater is editor of Alberta Farmer Express. Includes files from Glacier FarmMedia Network staff.

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A vote conducted Tuesday and Wednesday by the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 401 went to the nays “by a 98 per cent margin,” the union said in a release late Wednesday.

The workers’ bargaining committee had already recommended last Friday that members vote to reject the company’s proposal.

A Cargill spokesman confirmed late Thursday the company has now issued a lockout notice, corresponding with the union’s previously stated strike date of Dec. 6.

The most recent collective bargaining agreement for Cargill’s 2,000-plus employees at High River expired at the end of 2020. Employees on Nov. 4 voted in favour of strike action, after which UFCW served the company with strike notice on Nov. 10 — thus putting workers in position to strike also on Dec. 6, just after midnight.

“Cargill workers have told their employer through another overwhelming vote that they matter and that they deserve something more,” 401 president Thomas Hesse said in the union’s release Wednesday.

“We will be communicating the result to Cargill and asking them to return to the bargaining table to respond to our members.”

Worker wages remain a priority in negotiations, the union said previously, with improvements also sought in benefits, pensions, personal leave, leaves of absence, vacation time and expansion of the use of line speed clocks to “all areas” in the plant.

The union’s list of proposals also include “retroactivity” of pay dating back to when the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 to be a pandemic.

The company’s proposed deal had called for incremental wage increases which over six years would total $4.50 and $2.50 per hour for production and maintenance workers respectively, along with a guaranteed number of hours per week and retroactive hourly pay of $1 and 50 cents respectively for hours worked since Jan. 3 this year.

‘Challenging time’

“No one ever wants to go on strike,” union secretary treasurer Richelle Stewart said in Wednesday’s release. “But these workers have been through hell. They want a fair deal and what Cargill has offered does not meet that threshold.”

UFCW said it would call for Cargill to “resume negotiations with our union bargaining committee soon, and certainly before December 6, to bring bargaining to a positive conclusion.”

A Cargill spokesperson said Thursday the company is “willing to keep meeting to avoid any labour disruption, which is in no one’s best interest during an already challenging time.”

The High River plant has “one of the best workforces across Canada, and our proposal reflects their tremendous skill and dedication,” the company said.

“Unfortunately, we have yet to reach an agreement. We remain optimistic that we can reach an agreement before the Dec. 6 deadline.”

Meanwhile, the company said, “we continue to focus on fulfilling food manufacturer, retail and food service customer orders while keeping markets moving for farmers and ranchers.”

If need be, Cargill said, “we will shift production to other facilities within our broad supply chain footprint to minimize any disruptions.”

Later Thursday, after the lockout notice was issued, the company said it “remain(s) determined and hopeful that we can reach an agreement” between now and Dec. 6 — and that it has agreed to a meeting with UFCW 401’s bargaining committee next Tuesday (Nov. 30).

Cargill’s beef slaughter operations in North America also include a plant at Guelph, Ont. and six plants across the U.S. Its other Canadian beef facilities include case-ready meat plants at Calgary, Guelph and Chambly, Que. and beef patty plants at Spruce Grove, Alta. and Brampton, Ont.

However, as was made clear last year due to COVID-19 outbreaks among employees — and in 2013 during a major flood in the area — work stoppages at High River can weigh on throughput of beef cattle across Western Canada.

The High River plant, about 40 km south of Calgary, has capacity to slaughter about 4,500 cattle per day and is estimated at about 36 per cent of Canada’s domestic beef processing capacity.

COVID-19 outbreaks at the plant in the spring of 2020 ultimately infected nearly half the workforce at the time, leading to the deaths of two workers and the father of one worker. The plant was shut down as a result for two weeks that spring. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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However, the union bargaining committee for the workers, represented by the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 401, is recommending employees vote against the proposal.

UFCW, which represents over 2,000 workers at the plant, on Friday posted a copy of Cargill’s latest offer on its website and said it will conduct votes on the proposal Tuesday and Wednesday.

“Cargill is trying to tell us that this is all they have to give and that it’s ‘fair,’ but we don’t buy it,” the union said in a notice to workers.

“It’s absurd that Cargill would want to see a prolonged attack on their brand. If ever a group of workers deserved more, it is here, now,” UFCW 401 president Tom Hesse said in the notice.

The most recent collective bargaining agreement for Cargill’s employees at High River expired at the end of 2020. Following a strike vote by employees on Nov. 4, the union served the company with strike notice on Nov. 10, putting the workers in position to picket effective Dec. 6.

Among other points relating to benefits, employee leave and policies regarding treatment of temporary foreign workers, Cargill’s offer proposes a $2 per hour raise for production workers and 50 cent per hour raise for maintenance workers immediately after ratification, and increases of 50 and 40 cents per hour respectively each year for the following five years. It also includes retroactive pay of $1 and 50 cents per hour respectively for hours worked since Jan. 3 this year.

Asked Monday via email about the bargaining committee’s recommendation, a Cargill representative said the company didn’t have further updates to share but reiterated it “believe(s) that our proposal is very fair and representative of our values to put people first and do the right thing.”

“If Cargill doesn’t want a strike…their option is clear,” the union said in its notice to workers. “Give you higher wage increases, better retro-pay, and a significant pandemic bonus. There is not much time until we walk out, so Cargill, now is the time to try harder.”

Cargill on Monday reiterated it’s “optimistic that we can work towards an agreement by the union’s Dec. 6 strike deadline.”

As was made clear in April last year due to COVID-19 outbreaks among employees, and in a flood in 2013, work stoppages at High River can potentially weigh on throughput of beef cattle across Western Canada.

The High River plant, about 40 km south of Calgary, has capacity to slaughter about 4,500 cattle per day and is estimated to represent about 36 per cent of Canada’s domestic beef processing capacity.

Cargill’s other beef plants in Canada include a slaughter plant at Guelph, Ont., plus case-ready meat facilities at Calgary, Guelph and Chambly, Que. and beef patty processing plants at Spruce Grove, Alta. and Brampton, Ont. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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United Auto Workers (UAW), which represents over 10,000 Deere employees in the U.S., said late Wednesday its members voted 61 per cent in favour of new six-year collective bargaining agreements.

Operations are expected to resume on the third shift Wednesday night at affected plants, the major farm equipment manufacturer said in a statement.

Deere workers have been on strike since Oct. 14, after voting to reject a contract proposal that had the approval of both the company and UAW brass.

The work stoppage created uncertainty among farmers about equipment availability and parts supplies, particularly during the U.S. corn and soybean harvests. It also raised questions among market analysts about expectations for the company’s income this year.

“Through our new collective bargaining agreements, we’re giving employees the opportunity to earn wages and benefits that are the best in our industries and are groundbreaking in many ways,” Deere CEO John May said in a statement late Wednesday.

UAW said Wednesday the now-ratified agreement includes an US$8,500 signing bonus and a 20 per cent increase in wages over the length of the contract, with 10 per cent coming this year.

The union said the deal also resumes cost-of-living adjustments and provides for three lump sum payments of three per cent each, plus “enhanced” retirement options and performance benefits.

Deere workers’ willingness to strike “resulted in a groundbreaking contract and sets a new standard for workers not only within the UAW but throughout the country,” Chuck Browning, director of UAW’s agricultural implement department, said in the union’s release. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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