Attention News Editors:
Quality Meat Packers expresses disappointment
as union rejects Company's improved contract offer
TORONTO, Jan, 12 /CNW/ - Quality Meat Packers Ltd, Ltee today expressed
extreme disappointment at the decision by members of the United Food and
Commercial Workers Union to reject the company's latest, improved contract
offer.
"We are shocked by the decision,'' said David Schwartz, President of Quality Meat Packers. "'This was a sincere attempt to end this strike. Our workers have been out six weeks now and this is a serious threat to the company. They're losing wages, we're losing sales, and our pork producers, who are already racing the worst market in decades, are losing another processor for 25,000 hogs a week.
"We stretched our company to the limit to make this improved offer, so clearly we have reached a critical point and we have some serious decisions to make about the future."
"We're all losing in this strike," he said.
Mr. Schwartz said the Company had increased its original contract offer by $3.6 million, $2.5 million of which would have been paid to employees in the first year of the contract.
The improved offer included a freeze or wages at the higher level for 12 weeks, a $1,000 bonus for current employees working through December 3, 1999, a reduction in the hours required to be worked before overtime would be paid, a $150 bonus for low absentee time and preferred status over part time employees for overtime.
This new offer would have brought the total package paid to employees to over $11.5 million more than Quality Meat Packers' major competitor's existing agreement. That figure includes the $4 million the company has already paid to employees in higher Wages since April 1998.
The competitor's agreement, signed with the United Food and Commercial Workers Union last April, effectively established the industry's competitive wage and benefit rates. Since that time other meat processing plants across Canada have settled at comparable wage rates.
Mr. Schwartz said Quality Meat Packers must adjust its wage rates to bring them closer to the industry standard if the company is to stay in business long term.
''It's as simple as that,'' he said. "As a player in the international market, we must compete for the same customers as U.S. processors. We pay a North American price for our hogs, we sell internationally for the same price as other North American processors, we must have a competitive cost structure to survive, so we have to adjust our wages accordingly.
"Having said that, our wage offer actually translates into $1.05 an hour more on average than what other industry processors are now paying." Quality Meat Packers is a family-owned and operated business, founded in 1931 by Nathan Schwartz, President David Schwartz's grandfather. The company's two Toronto plants employ more than 950 people.
For further information: Melain Nolan, McManus Elliott Communications,
(416) 979-8300 extension 239
Karen Sample, Quality Meat Packers,
(519) 668-4173
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