------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- Date: Sun, 03 Aug 1997 17:49:04 -0600 From: EW Plawiuk <ewplawiuk@mail.geocities.com> Subject: Cargill Strike Over. To: a-infos-raw@tao.ca Reply-to: a-infos-work@tao.ca
>Date: Sun, 03 Aug 1997 17:33:44 -0600
>Dear brothers and sisters:
>I am writing you to thank you for your posting about our webpage in solidarity
with UFCW Local 1118 on strike at the Cargill plant in High river
Alberta. Many solodarity messages were received and. On August 2,
1997 meatpacking workers approved a contract and will be back to work
on Tuesday August 5. I am including an article on the settlement from
a fellow worker in Calgary.
I have archived the material on the Cargill Solidarity page, and remade the page into an Alberta Strike Solidarity Page same address:
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/5202/cargill.html
You can keep informed about the latest news on labour in Alberta by going to the page. As well I am continuing the cyber email campaign to generate support for anti-scab legislation in Alberta
Again thanks for your solidarity, it was appreciated by all.
In solidarity,
Eugene Plawiuk
>Comrades
>The strike at Cargill meatpackers in over. The following is based upon
>News reports and an account in this morning's Calgary Herald.
>Striking workers at Cargill's High River Alberta plant yesterday voted by
>a narrow margin to return to work. UFCW local 1118 members had been
on strike since July 10.
>Only about half of the 1,600 strikers showed up to vote and only 53%
voted in favour of the new contract (457-404). Cargill had proposed
a $1.50 increase over a four year contract. The union proposed a
$1.95 raise over three years. In the end a deal was reached for
%1.50 over three and a half years. Full time employees also received
a signing bonus of $150. The minimun wage in the plant is now raised
to $8.80 an hour and full time employees are guaranteed 36 hours of
work per week (although it can be reduced to 32 hours a week ten
times a year)
>Cargill is retaining 75 workers who were hired during the strike,
but in a touching display of reconcilliation it was agreed that
neither workers who walked the line nor those who scabbed would be
penalized.
>"I think we got screwed" said meatpacker Tim Ressler, who voted no because
>the wage increase was too small. Other workers believed it was the
best they could have achieved. One worker, who voted for the deal,
noted "They said they'd never budge [on four years]. They did."
Moreover he boasted, regarding the scabs "One by one, everyone of
those [expletive] are going to be out of the plant.
>Small gains perhaps, but the workers took on one of the biggest
>companies in the world and won. Could the union have done more? At
the meeting there seemed to be little criticism of the union.
Workers I spoke to on the line argued that in the past few years the
leadership had become more responsive to the demands of the workers.
Still, it is worth repeating that a call to the International Union
for more information revealing they were not aware a strike was
taking place!
>First Safeway, now Cargill, the long hot summer in alberta continues.
>CGs
>Neil Fettes
>
Union Ring http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/5202/unionring.html
Alberta Strike Solidarity Page http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/5202/cargill.html
Plawiuk Pontificates, Voice of the Rebel Worker http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/5202
Just Do It! Boycott Nike http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/5232
Commodity Fetish Times http://www.geocities.com/WallStreet/9973
The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939 http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/9820
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