In February 2003, after the company started a second production line, workers saw their former 39-hour workweek cut in half or less. Their weekly take-home pay fell to between CAN $150 and $200 (CAN $1 = U.S. $0.82). Strikers told the Militant that since February 2002 the bosses have selectively used temp agency workers for tasks normally done by union members, often bringing them in while union members are told to stay home because there’s no work.

Despite often freezing temperatures, both the company owners and the city of Montreal has denied the union permission to set up a picket trailer. The city has also denied workers permission to set up a wood-burning barrel to warm their hands. So when temperatures plunge well below zero the union has been making sure that no-one pickets for more than 15 minutes at a time and that a few cars, engines running, are at their disposal to warm up.

“Our numbers on the picket line have dropped off because of the cold,” said Carlo Désir, the union president. “But others have decided not to look for other jobs in order to support the strike. We all agree that we won’t go back with our heads down and that we have to wage this battle to the end.”

On November 30, the striking workers voted 96 percent against the first company offer since their contract expired in December 2003. The contract contained no guaranteed hours, and made no mention of wages, vacations, pensions, or paid leaves for illness or other reasons, with the exception of legal holidays.

The union has had to confront a number of challenges since the strike began September 13. At the beginning of November, striking workers were handed an injunction that limited pickets to 18 at a time and forced strikers to move the line to the other side of the street. Two weeks later, however, workers were able to get the injunction modified to allow them to resume picketing on the sidewalk in front of the plant.

The union has been able to push the bosses back on some other points. On October 30, the union filed a complaint before the Quebec Labor Relations Board (CRT), charging the company with using some 40 replacement workers to maintain production, in violation of the Quebec Labor Code, which bans the use of salaried workers, other than supervisory personnel, to replace striking or lock-out workers.

The union won a partial victory November 2, when the CRT ruled that relatives of supervisory personnel, as well as rabbis who were paid to insure that chickens are slaughtered according to strict Jewish ritual before the strike began, could not work during the strike. The CRT also ruled, however, that persons who voluntarily offer their services to Volailles Marvid out of religious conviction could legally work during the strike. The company has continued to use this loophole in the Labor Code to its advantage. But it was caught violating the ruling December 29 when a CRT board member, through the vigilance of the union, witnessed three of the rabbis named in the ruling entering the plant.

Désir estimates that the abattoir is presently running at about 25 percent of capacity. An article published in the November 11 internet edition of The Canadian Jewish News said, “In a rare move… the city’s main kosher certification body…, the Vaad Ha'ir, began to allow suppliers from outside Montreal—most prominently from the U.S.-based Empire Kosher Poultry—to bring kosher chickens into the city to cope with the shortage,” which was caused by the strike.

In another CRT ruling handed down November 23, the company was ordered to reinstate Arnold Fertil, a worker who was fired for union activities August 11, a month before the strike. Léo Ouellette, the CSN counsellor assigned to the strike, told the Militant that the company has recently appealed this ruling.

Glorieuse Dorvil, who has worked at Marvid for 26 years, told this reporter that on December 28 strikers received their weekly $200 strike pay, plus a Christmas bonus of $150, drawn from the some $9,000 contributed so far by other CSN-affiliated unions.

On that snowy day, a group of strikers, in high spirits, returned to the picket line and began to dance and sing to a rhythmic popular carnival tune in Haiti called “Don’t give us that.” The strikers, 80 percent of whom are Haitian, have adapted the lyrics of this song to include the main demands of the strike.

At one point, one of the bosses came out of the plant, walked toward them, stared at the workers contemptuously for several minutes while leaning on a shovel, then shook his head in disbelief and slowly turned back toward the plant.

“Since the November 30 vote,” said Dorvil, “we’ve heard nothing from the company, but what’s encouraging is that the solidarity among us is strong and our morale remains high.”

Aimée Kendergian, a meat packer in Montreal, contributed to this article.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home