Vol. 74/No. 1      January 4, 2010

“Things are not well managed, and rather than lose money they attack our salaries,” Hugo Brouillard, who has worked there for 14 years, told the Militant.

The company had reopened negotiations for two days last week. Réal Ménard, the union president, told the local paper, “We quickly realized that the company was still inflexible.” He added that the company demands would bring layoffs and that was “unacceptable” for the union.

In 2005 the workers agreed to a 20 percent cut in wages and benefits in face of Olymel’s threats to close the plant. The mood here is that workers are not prepared to give up more. Aghan, who has worked in the plant for three years, said, partly in jest and partly to express the workers’ determination, that the strike “could go ’til next summer. We don’t care.”

Workers on the line, in discussing where the attacks are coming from, referred to La Coop Fédérée and the Union of Agricultural Producers (UPA), saying that the Quebec government appears to be doing their bidding. La Coop Fédérée, which started as a farmer’s cooperative, owns a big part of Olymel, which claims to be the biggest exporter of pork and poultry in Canada.

In his interview with the local press, Ménard explained that the company negotiators say that they have been told by “those on high” to stick to their guns. “On high?” he asked. “Is that God, Olymel, or the Coop Fédérée?”

… As we go to press the union and company reached an initial agreement.