The company had prepared for the lockout the day before when a vote on the contract was scheduled to take place. Management shut down all production and ordering workers to clean out their lockers and then cast their ballots in the lunchroom. The vote was 345 to 13, a solid 96 percent, against the contract.

Members of United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 1518 are standing up to an antiunion drive by the bosses. The proposed contract cut the base rate of pay by 40 percent, from $16.50 to $10.00 an hour. Other concessions demanded were reducing the maximum vacation time to four weeks from the present seven weeks, lengthening the probationary period to 90 working days from the current 60, and reducing the shift premium to 35 cents from the current 50 cents.

The shift premium would be paid after 6:00 p.m. rather than after 4:00 p.m.

One measure most humiliating to workers was limiting use of the washrooms while on the job to 20 minutes a week. Workers would be forced to pay the company double and even triple time for any time over that amount.

Fletchers demanded the vote on the contract by invoking section 78 of the British Columbia Labor Code, in which companies can force votes on their offers one time during contract negotiations.

Workers at the plant process pork. The company has a kill operation in Red Deer, Alberta, where it was successful in imposing a similar contract after a 10-week strike by the union in 1998.  
 
Company forces cuts elsewhere
The previous contract expired on May 31 and Local 1518 members at Fletchers had mandated the bargaining committee to refuse to negotiate concessions. UFCW members at Maple Leaf Foods, owned by the McCains--one of Canada's wealthiest families--waged a six-month strike in an unsuccessful attempt to oppose these draconian concessions in Burlington, Ontario. Maple Leaf closed its Edmonton plant after union members there rejected wage cuts.

Fletcher workers had ratified a contract in 1997 that included modest annual wage increases in a three-year contract. But in August 1998, after the defeat of the Red Deer strike, Fletchers management threatened to close the Vancouver processing plant unless workers agreed to similar concessions. UFCW members soundly rejected this ultimatum.

Workers at Fletchers join fellow UFCW Local 1518 members at Superior Poultry on the picket line. The 225 unionists at Superior Poultry in nearby Coquitlam went on strike for a first contract on July 23. Superior Poultry workers start at $7.15 an hour and few make as much as $10 an hour. Management at Superior is operating the plant with around 50 workers who have crossed the line. The bosses have also hired a squad of goons who threaten and try to intimidate the strikers--the big majority of whom are immigrant women.

A support rally at the picket line in front of the Coquitlam plant was called for August 22. All unionists and other supporters were encouraged to attend. Several workers from Fletchers have already been out to the line at Superior to express solidarity.

"After I read the material from the union web site, I wanted to give my support and to see for myself whether the conditions described in the union bulletin really existed," said Julio Caballero, a union member locked out at Fletchers.

Beverly Bernardo is a locked-out member of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1518 at Fletchers Fine Foods in Vancouver.