Toronto - Maple Leaf Foods Inc and the union representing 500 workers at two meat- processing plants reached a tentative agreement on Thursday that could end lockouts that have lasted more than six months, a United Food and Commercial Workers union statement issued on Friday said.
The UFCW's negotiating committees plan to unanimously recommend to its 200 bacon processing members in North Battleford, Saskatchewan, and 300 wiener-processing members in Hamilton, Ontario, that they accept the agreement.
Workers in North Battleford were locked out on August 31, 1997 and workers in Hamilton were locked out October 4.
UFCW members in Saskatchewan earned C$9.88 an hour prior to the lockout and sought higher wages and enhanced benefits. Hamilton workers sought higher wages, improved benefits and the establishment of a pension plan, the UFCW said.
Some 1,650 packers at Maple Leaf's kill-and-cut plants in Edmonton, Alberta, and Burlington, Ontario, went on strike in November seeking higher wages.
Maple Leaf mothballed the Edmonton plant and obtained a wage rollback from Burlington's 900 UFCW members after offering them more than C$10,000 in a signing bonus earlier this month.
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