Quality Meat Packers expresses disappointment at strike in face of industry-wide downturn, wage reductions

TORONTO, December 6, 1998-- Quality Meat Packers Ltd, Ltée today expressed disappointment at the decision by members of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union to strike the company effective midnight tonight.

"We are disappointed by the decision to strike," said David Schwartz, President of Quality Meat Packers. "No one can win in this strike. The company will lose sales, the employees will lose wages, the already financially strained pork producers will lose another processor for 23,000 hogs a week, and the fundamentals of our industry will remain the same.

"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.

"The competitive wage and benefit rates were effectively established in April when the employees at another major processor in our industry represented by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, accepted a reduction in wages and benefits. Since that time other meat processing plants across Canada have settled at comparable wage rates.

Mr. Schwartz said the Quality Meat Packers offer would have adjusted wages but still given the company's employees substantially higher hourly rates and other benefits than those in other agreements involving the U.F.C.W. He said those higher wages and benefits would pay Quality Meat Packers employees over $4.5 million more over the life of the contract than contracts the union has with Quality Meat Packers' major competitor. "We have tried to be more than fair in our negotiations with the union," said Mr. Schwartz. "No one likes wage rollbacks, but that's what the international, competitive marketplace is forcing on us.

"We had already extended our collective agreement for an extra year, to give both parties a chance to evaluate the industry's competitive conditions before signing any new contract," Mr. Schwartz said. "This wage and benefit differential has cost Quality Meat Packers more than $4 million over competitors' rates since April 1998.

"To stay in business, Quality Meat Packers must also adjust its rates. It's as simple as that."

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.

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