Soyaworld Members Build Joint Council,  
 & Ratify Four Year Contract
                                                       Jan 14,2008                                                                          

IAM members at Soyaworld have recently concluded a new four year Collective Agreement that brings wage and increases of 12% over the term of the Contact. The contract had expired in March 2007. This was a long and difficult set of negotiations that commenced in Fall of 2006 with a Labour Board application by the employer that sought consolidation of three bargaining units into a single unit.

Soyaworld had purchased a division of Saputo Foods (Dairyworld) two years previously, and inherited the existing bargaining structure with three Unions: Teamsters, Machinists (IAM), and Operating Engineers (IUOE). Teamsters had approximately 50 members who operated the equipment in the plant, while the Machinists and Operating Engineers each had about 5 members in the maintenance and steam plant, respectively.

Soyaworld made representations at the Labour Board, arguing that a small company faces great risk of industrial instability if forced to bargain three separate rounds of negotiations. Essentially, this application meant that the IAM and IUOE members would be forced into the Teamsters Union and would be forced to assume the Teamsters contact. All three Unions opposed this application

At the Labour Board hearings, the parties agreed to form a Joint Council of Labour Unions representing all the members employed by Soyaworld. This is an arrangement commonly referred to as a Poly Party. What this meant was that all the members became a single bargaining unit with a single Collective Agreement, represented by their respective Unions. This agreement was reached in Spring of 2007, and led to a long process of Collective Bargaining that concluded just prior to Christmas.

The first step in this process was bargaining between the three Unions to determine what would be the proposed single Collective Agreement that would be put forward as a proposed document to the employer. The three contracts of the respective Unions were significantly diverse, as they represented the interests of their respective members, and the different skills each of them applied in the workplace. Shortly after this, the Unions met with the employer – who was accompanied by legal counsel throughout this process – and the parties had approximately six days of negotiations over the content of the dovetailed agreement.

On the conclusion of this consolidation process, we collected bargaining proposals from each Union’s membership and put together a single document that represented the combined proposals of the entire membership in the new Council. Bargaining commenced in early Summer 2007 and the final agreement was finally ratified December 22^nd.

Said Directing Business Representative Stan Pickthall: “Along the way there was a great deal of work getting all the parties together and finding common ground at the bargaining table. Throughout this long process, the three member Unions of the Joint Council worked together and presented a United front to the employer.”

There were a number of changes made along the way, as well as the following financial offer :

             April 1, 2007               2.5%
             April 1, 2008               2.5%
             April 1, 2009               3.0%
             April 1, 2010               3.0%

In addition, there is a signing bonus of 0.5% in the first year and 0.5% added to Pension in the fourth year.

At the end of the process, it took a Rock Solid 98% strike mandate from the employees to get the Company to bring forward a final offer that the Unions could recommend to the membership. The final ratification vote, which took place several days after the Union served 72 hours strike notice, resulted in an 85% acceptance of this four year deal.

Congratulations to the membership at Soyaworld on achieving a new Collective Agreement – we look forward to working closely with you over the next four years.