BY JACQUIE HENDERSON AND BEV BERNARDO
VANCOUVER, British Columbia - Members of United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 1118 voted July 12 by a margin of 357 to 186 to accept a six-year contract. The vote ended the meatpackers' 10-week strike at Fletcher's Fine Foods hog processing plant in Red Deer, Alberta. About 420 of the plant's 635 workers resumed work July 20.

"It's a bad contract; the company got what it wanted," said a former striker who asked the Militant not to use his name. Under the terms of the new contract 55 percent of Fletcher's workers will see their wages cut by up to Can$5.82 an hour (Can$1=US$.67). Approximately 45 percent of the strikers, workers with low seniority, will receive an initial wage increase from the previous starting wage of $8.25 an hour. But the company's base rate will be lowered to $10.15 from $15.35 per hour. The basic offer differs little from the one rejected by the unionists in April when they voted to strike.

In order to sweeten the bitterly-opposed wage-cutting proposal, Fletcher's increased the one-time bonuses included in the contract. The bonuses range from a minimum of $5,500 for a worker that who just started at the plant to a maximum of $22,000 for high seniority workers facing wage cuts of almost $6 an hour.

Workers can also opt to forego the bonus and continue receiving their current wage for another two years when the wage cuts would kick in. Many workers are expected to take the bonus as a severance package. "A lot of us are very disappointed," Joe Clubine told the Militant. Clubine, a leaf lard puller with two years at the plant, said his pay will be cut $1.76 an hour. "The company is going to lose a lot of people. It's not like it's an easy job," he explained.

Fletcher's Fine Foods bosses have lauded the settlement for "ensuring the company's global competitiveness." Since the March settlement by striking UFCW members at Maple Leaf Foods in Burlington, Ontario, which included a 40 percent slash in wages, Fletcher's had been stressing their need to match these cuts. Don Loewen, Fletcher's chairman of the board, greeted the settlement by outlining plans for speeding up production. "This settlement is very timely, he said. "At the end of this month the Red Deer plant will have the capacity to process 8,000 hogs in a single shift."

Jacquie Henderson is a member of the International Association of Machinists.  
 
 
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