BY KATY LEROUGETEL
TORONTO - More than 800 workers at Quality Meat Packers
here, members of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 743,
continued their strike after a January 12 vote rejecting
another company offer. They have been on strike since Dec. 7,
1998.
Of the 650 ballots cast, 368, or 58 percent, voted against going back to work under the conditions offered. These included maintaining a wage cut of up to Can$6 (US$3.90) an hour, only getting overtime pay after 42 hours a week, and several onetime monetary inducements to return to work and not quit for the duration of 1999.
When the vote tally was announced, a cheer went up from the waiting crowd and strikers congratulated each other before heading out into the snow. Above strikers on the picket line in early December in Toronto.
Katy LeRougetel is a member of United Steelworkers of America Local 5338.