WINNIPEG - Canada's largest food processor will close its Alberta pork plant if union workers go ahead with plans to strike, a Maple Leaf Foods (MFI.TO) spokeswoman said.
"We'd like to keep the plant open for another two or three years. It's a 91-year-old plant. It would cost a lot to reopen it if there was a strike and the company's not prepared to make that kind of investment," said Linda Smith of Maple Leaf.
Sixty-eight percent of the Edmonton plant's 850 unionized workers voted on Wednesday night to go on strike, a United Food and Commercial Workers Local 312A spokeswoman said.
"The papers were filed this afternoon with the labor board, then it's a 72-hour notice period if we go on strike," the UFCW spokeswoman said.
Maple Leaf said it would implement a labor mediator's recommendation that wages be raised by C$0.84 an hour over three years and improve benefits.
"The mediator's report is as far as the company will go," Smith said.
The Edmonton hog slaughter and processing plant saw a lengthy and violent strike in 1986 when it was owned by another packing firm.
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