Unionized workers at Richardson International’s oilseed crush plant at Lethbridge, Alta. will vote Tuesday and Wednesday on a new offer from the company after rejecting a previous proposal.
United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 401 announced Tuesday (Jan. 25) its negotiating committee “fully endorses” the new offer after the company’s Richardson Oilseed division “enhanced its offer of settlement.”
The workers’ previous contract expired at the end of August 2019; the union and company had agreed during earlier talks to seek a five-year contract taking it through to Aug. 31, 2024.
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The next employee vote — to be held in person Feb. 1 at the Holiday Inn Express Lethbridge Southeast, and online on Feb. 2 — will be the second after workers voted 79 per cent to reject a previous proposal before Christmas.
Despite the union negotiators’ endorsement, UFCW said Tuesday, if the new offer is rejected, “we will proceed with the next steps towards a strike vote.”
The new offer, retroactive to September 2019, would see workers get a 2.25 per cent raise in the agreement’s first year, 2.75 per cent in the second, three per cent in the third and 2.5 per cent in each of the following three years — adding a sixth year to the agreement.
“By moving the money earlier in the contract, the negotiating committee was able to put more money in the membership pockets sooner,” UFCW executive director Chris O’Halloran said in a release Tuesday after the company agreed to the new raise schedule.
“We had heard that the membership wanted to see three per cent raises, and the company had offered them, but we wanted the money earlier in the CBA (collective bargaining agreement).”
Supplying customers in Canada and the U.S. as well as other export markets, Winnipeg-based Richardson’s Lethbridge plant has capacity to handle up to 700,000 tonnes of canola per year, following a $120 million expansion in 2017.
The Lethbridge plant includes a packaging facility at which canola oil is bottled and margarine and shortening are packaged. Its products are sold under the Canola Harvest and Wesson brands and to private-label and foodservice customers.
Richardson’s other oilseed facilities include its canola crush and refining plant at Yorkton, Sask. and its margarine plant at Oakville, Ont. — Glacier FarmMedia Network
