BY ROSEMARY RAY AND VICKY MERCIER
HAMILTON, Ontario - More than 200 members of the United Food and Commercial Workers union (UFCW) on strike against Maple Leaf Foods and their supporters rallied on the steps of Hamilton City Hall February 22. Hosted by the Hamilton and District Labor Council, the rally drew supporters from the auto workers, firefighters, steelworkers, and nurses unions in this industrial city 30 miles west of Toronto.

Locked-out UFCW members from the Stoney Creek Maple Leaf plant jumped onto the speakers' platform yelling "Hey, hey, ho, ho, Michael McCain has got to go." McCain, the owner of Maple Leaf Foods, is demanding 40 percent wage cuts, the introduction of part-time work, and other concessions that more than 2,300 UFCW members in four plants across Canada refuse to accept.

Richard Pollock, a member of the UFCW negotiating committee explained McCain's latest buyout offer to the strikers - a cash offer of Can$50 (Can$1= US$0.70) for every month of service with full seniority. "McCain says he'll close the Burlington plant if we don't accept the buyout," Pollock said. "If we sell off our jobs McCain will hire 600 new workers for $8 an hour -he can close the plant before the union would ever accept this."

After several labor officials pledged their support to the strikers, the rally participants stepped off to march to the Copps Coliseum to attend a minor league hockey game. As thousands of hockey fans looked up in the bleachers, the strikers held up large individual letters that read "Boycott Maple Leaf Products."

McCain has put his buyout offer on the table and a union meeting has been called for March 5 where UFCW officials have said they will recommend a no vote. This new contract proposal was a hot topic of debate at the rally. Albert Mota, a striker with 19 years of experience at the Burlington plant, said the buyout will enable McCain "to replace us with part-time workers." Mota is going to vote against the offer and said, "McCain is trying to divide our people with this buyout."

John Continelli, who has worked on the cut line at Burlington for the last 28 years, said categorically, "No way I will accept the buyout! McCain will never close the Burlington plant. He will lose a fortune. Burlington is the flagship plant -he's invested $70 million to make it the most modern hog processing plant in Canada."

Dan Chapman who also works on the cut line said, "There is a split on the picket line as to whether to accept the buyout plan."

Chapman says he will vote no because if workers accept the offer "that means we are voting yes to the 40 percent wage cut." Chapman, who is talking to many of his co-strikers urging them to vote no said, "The future of all unions is on the line here - once you let the pebble drop in the water it touches everyone."

The youthful contingent of locked-out workers from the Stoney Creek plant, with their faces brightly painted, had plastered themselves from head to toe with "Boycott Maple Leaf" stickers. They said that their base rate is CAN$10.90. While the company is not demanding a wage-cut at their plant, it wants to turn 40 percent of their jobs into part-time work.

The day after the rally Maple Leaf spokesperson Linda Smith declared in a Canadian Broadcasting radio interview, "Maple Leaf must reduce wages at the Burlington plant so as to create jobs for the future and maintain a viable pork industry in Canada. We must be able to compete with large U.S. competitors in the global market." The program host described the UFCW attempt to win public sympathy with television commercials aired during coverage of the winter Olympics showing the strikers on the picket line in sub-zero temperature demanding "a fair wage for a fair day's work."

Maple Leaf has placed full-page ads in major newspapers across the country under the headline, "Canadian hogs are not going south just for the warmer weather." The ads state that Canadian farmers prefer to sell their hogs to U.S. processors, who are able to pay them more for their hogs because they pay lower wages to the workers in the meatpacking plants there.

Kip Connelly, representing the UFCW in the same radio interview with Smith, said Canadian meatpackers would not settle for lower wages like those paid in the United States.

"Dropping the base rate from $16.58 to $10 is not fair," he said.

Linda Smith ended the radio interview by stating, "The UFCW can run these ads for the next five years but the Burlington plant will not reopen at the current wage levels."

As part of their propaganda campaign against the strike Maple Leaf continues to gloat about the jobs it will create at the new plant it is building in Brandon, Manitoba, which will be completed in 1999 and that the company says will be the most efficient hog-processing plant in North America.

While the company continues with its hard-line stance against the strike, it still faces strikers like Maria Oliveria from the Burlington plant. She told Militant reporters at the Hamilton rally, " I'm not accepting the buyout. It would mean going back to the pay we earned 18 years ago."

Vicky Mercier is a member of the United Steelworkers of America.  
 
 
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