Brewery workers reject offer

[mr x]

Brewery workers reject offer

Negotiations on a collective agreement between Labatt Breweries of Canada and 130 unionized workers at Oland Brewery in Halifax are expected to resume later this week after the latest contract offer from the employer was rejected overwhelmingly over the weekend.

The talks were dragging out even as the brewer said Wednesday it will spend $10 million on improvements at the plant this year.

“The latest offer was rejected 100 per cent by members,” Don Roberts, president of Local 361 of the Brewery and Soft Drink Workers Union, said in an interview Wednesday.

A conciliator’s report on the contract dispute was filed Friday, which started a 14-day clock running toward a possible labour disruption at the plant that handles production in Nova Scotia of Alexander Keith’s India Pale Ale, the province’s most popular ale, and numerous other brews, including Budweiser.

Roberts said he would not discuss the specifics of the negotiations, except to say the latest offer was rejected.

Talks are scheduled to resume this week, he said.

“We are continuing negotiations and are committed to achieving a contract,” said Roberts.

Labatt spokesman Wade Keller confirmed talks are scheduled to resume after the unionized workers rejected the latest offer from the company.

“Our concern is that Oland Brewery remains sustainable over the long term,” said Keller.

He said he could not discuss specific issues preventing the brewer from achieving a contract with members of its unionized workforce.

Meanwhile, Labatt Breweries said it plans to spend nearly $10 million this year on assorted improvements at Oland Brewery.

The spending will be dedicated to improvements in environmental controls, brewing equipment and building renovations, said a company news release.

A major part of the scheduled work includes installation of equipment required to brew more Budweiser.

About 40 full-time and temporary jobs were lost at the Oland Brewery in November 2010 after Labatt shifted some production of Alexander Keith’s India Pale Ale to other company breweries across Canada, mostly in Quebec and Ontario.

At that time, Labatt said the change was necessary to reduce transportation costs and to shift some production to underutilized plants.

All Keith’s ale consumed in the Maritimes continues to be brewed at the Agricola Street plant.

http://thechronicleherald.ca/business/6 ... ject-offer" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[mr x]

Oland Brewery workers reject tentative contract

Unionized workers at Oland Brewery in Halifax have rejected a tentative collective agreement negotiated with Labatt Breweries of Canada.

Mark Dobson, the regional director for the Atlantic region of the United Food & Commercial Workers Canada, said both sides of the contract dispute are back negotiating.

"The collective agreement was turned down by a majority of the membership and we've commenced renegotiations with the employer on some of the areas of concern," Dobson told CBC News on Friday.

"Those conversations continued last night and they're scheduled again for today."

An agreement in principle was reached on a collective agreement earlier this week, which was then rejected by a majority of the 130 unionized workers at Oland Brewery.

A previous offer from the employer was also rejected overwhelmingly over the weekend.

"We're hopeful and confident that we'll be able to reach a settlement that we can take back to the membership very shortly," Dobson said.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scot ... ement.html

[Jimmy]

Labatt's employees locked out in less than 48 hours



Posted by Neal Ozano on Friday, February 17, 2012

"We can run the plant with managers," says Labatt's spokesman Wade Keller. "We will not run out of beer."

Though they reached an agreement in principle last weekend, Brewers at the Oland Brewery on Agricola Street will be locked out by Labatt's after members of the Local 361 of the Brewery and Soft Drink Workers Union rejected the company's latest offer, says Keller.

Things were looking rosy on Valentine's Day for workers, when Don Roberts, president of Local 361, said, "We have a tentative deal. We'll know more when we either get an acceptance or a rejection."

But though there'd been meetings with the union as recently as last night, "It's been 14 days since the conciliator filed his report, so today we filed a 48-hour lockout notice with the Minister of Labour."

Keller says they have enough beer for "the future."

"We have five other breweries in Canada to draw from," he says.

The union was offered a 6.5 percent increase in wages over seven years.

The average salary, Keller says, including bonuses and overtime, is $69,000 a year, for everyone from the "people who drive forklifts" to the one who "operates the machine (that) cuts bottoms off cardboard boxes."

He says negotiations seem to be stuck on several main issues, including the salary increase amount, and contributions to their benefit plan. Right now, Keller says, the company pays 100 percent of those contributions, but would like to see "employees contributing to their defined benefit plan." The company also offered to increase a performance-based, four to six percent salary bonus.

The Oland Brewery produces approximately 800,000 hectolitres of beer per year. That's 32 Olympic-sized swimming pools per year of Keith's, Oland and Budweiser, among others. Keller says most of that beer is for Nova Scotia, with approximately 87 per cent being sold through NSLC stores. Some of the beer is sent to New Brunswick and other parts of Canada.

This story will be updated with further comment from the union.

http://halifax.openfile.ca/blog/curator ... s-48-hours" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[mr x]

We can run the plant with managers....famous last words.

[BBrianBoogie]

We can run the plant with managers....famous last words.

I hope some shit breaks down immediately. That kind of attitude is just so fucking insulting. Everyone's an expert on how easy people's jobs are, when they don't actually have to do them. I just had an engineer tell me this morning how easy a difficult job I was doing was. I told him of course it's easy when all you have to do is stand there with your hands in your pockets. Handed him a wrench and said go to it. He declined the offer not surprisingly.

[mr x]

We should have drinks together more often.

[Jimmy]

A response posted below the article:

Labatts, parent company is worth 114 billion dollars. It recently offered its retiree's a tax free cash offer to buy their medical plans, transferirng their cost to nova scotia tax payers since these people will now be on provincial funded pharmacare. Five years ago they made over 600 million profit in Canada alone and over 2 BILLION global, and in the same year took 4.5 million from the tax payer's of nova scotia for their plant. The offer they made to the employee' s would create 3 different compensation packages for doing the same job. The company's C.E.O. is in line to receive 118 MILLION dollar bonus and the executive group is in line to receive 1.4 BILLION dollars bonus. This company makes its money by putting it's hands in the pockets of its employee' and the tax payers. As far as the bonus package, the company sets the targets which have never been fully achieved, so have never been paid out in full. In last contract the union accepted 5 year wage freeze and benefit losses.Over the last 20 years their have only been wage increases between 2000 and 2005. By the way Mr. Keller what is your total compensation package, or are you too embarrassed to tell us. You have the nerve to attack your employees's for rejecting this deal which enriches your company while taking income from the same community that you want to support your product. When you unnecessarily reduce the wages of your employees', you reduce the amount of disposably income they have to spent in their communities, hurting the local economy in general.

[derek]

We can run the plant with managers....famous last words.

That's just silly. There can't be enough manager-piss to keep the barrels full.

[Jimmy]

They accepted the offer this morning, 60/40. A lot of unhappy employees today, lol

[Jimmy]

Unionized workers at Oland Brewery in Halifax accepted an offer by Labatt Breweries of Canada on Sunday, avoiding a lockout.

Don Roberts, president of Local 361 of the Brewery and Soft Drink Workers, wouldn't say how many of the 130 unionized workers voted in favour of the new seven-year deal, but said it passed by a close margin.

He said he's glad the deal has been made, although some workers are unhappy. There were no details of what is contained in the new deal.

"It should be a good day for some. The vote was close, so there's going to be some mending involved. Where the vote was so close, there's hard feelings on one side, but again it was accepted by the majority," Roberts said.

"It's always, I think, a good thing when you have a contract accepted. It's not everything the membership wanted. It'll take some time to work through."

Brewery spokesman Wade Keller said they're pleased the union accepted their latest offer.

"Our workforce is very professional and we don't expect anything but professionalism going forward," he said.

"There's always give-and-take in negotiations and we accept that. But, at the end of the day, we have a new collective agreement and we can continue with the business of brewing the best brands of beer in the Maritimes."

Keller said the new contract will allow the brewery to be more competitive.

"We feel it's one that will allow our brewery to be more competitive not only with other breweries but within our Labatt network," he said.

"It provides employees with an increase in wages and some other benefits and again it allows the brewery to be competitive."

Last Friday morning, a majority of the workers at the Agricola Street plant rejected an agreement in principle.

That offer included a 6.5 per cent wage increase over the next seven years, Keller said Friday.

Oland Brewery notified Labour Minister Marilyn More Friday afternoon that the company would lock out employees within 48 hours if they don't agree to a deal.

The average wage for a unionized worker at the brewery is $69,000, Keller said.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scot ... -vote.html

[BobbyOK]

It would be interesting to see just how quickly the parent company would shutter the place if they ever went on strike. They've already officially moved Keith's brewing elsewhere, so no need for a "brewed in NS" façade any more than what they've got on Hollis. And they'd probably get some good money selling the place to a developer.

[mr x]

They were going to go through the lockout stage, so I'm guessing the place wouldn't be shut. I think they still need Keith's brewed in NS for that brand, but if people just migrate to Blue, it hardly matters in some ways...

[Graham.C]

They were going to go through the lockout stage, so I'm guessing the place wouldn't be shut. I think they still need Keith's brewed in NS for that brand, but if people just migrate to Blue, it hardly matters in some ways...

But to them its much worse if people migrate to Canadian.

[mr x]

True, but Atlantic Canadians are too stupid for targeted protests that actually accomplish something....