Cargill And UFCW 401 Back At The Bargaining Table

Nov 30, 2021

The beef sector is hoping to see an agreement reached that will avert a potential lock out at the Cargill meat packing plant at High River.

Negotiators for Cargill and the United Food and Commercial Workers Canada Union Local 401 are back at the bargaining table today.

A report called "No Safe Place" compiled by the Centre for Refugee Studies at York University and the advocacy group Action Dignity focused on conditions faced by employees during COVID at Alberta's meatpacking plants.

Action Dignity's website notes Cargill workers want to see :

- Increased wages for all, including full retroactive pay. (The company reportedly ended its extra pandemic pay for workers last year.)
- Increased signing bonus
- Fair ways to monitor line speeds
- Limitations on benefit costs and co-pays
- Increased benefit coverage
- Health and safety improvements
- Sick leave
- Improvements to shift scheduling

Cargill has reportedly exchanged proposals with the union focusing around increased wages, cash bonuses and enhanced employee benefits.

However, workers voted 98% against Cargill's offer last week.

That resulted in the company serving notice that if contract talks (which begin Nov 30) are unsuccessful it will lock out more than 2000 workers at the plant starting on Monday, December 6th.

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Video: Alberta Honey: A Day at Molenkamp Honey Farms

When was the last time you read the label on your honey?

We spent a day at Molenkamp Honey Farms with Michael Molenkamp, who has been keeping bees for 17 seasons and runs three to four thousand hives. In mid-September, he was finishing treatments and getting his bees ready for winter, and he walked us through how Alberta honey gets made.

Alberta has just 150 commercial beekeepers running 300,000 colonies, and together they produce 40% of Canada’s honey. Long summer days and golden canola fields give Alberta honey a light flavour that’s hard to match anywhere else.

Molenkamp calls Alberta beekeepers some of the most resilient farmers he knows. There’s plenty of Alberta honey to go around, but a lot on our shelves isn’t from here, so his ask is simple. Give the label a second look and choose honey made by Alberta beekeepers, or buy straight from a beekeeper near you.