Talks underway on new HyLife deal

Details

Published on Friday, January 23, 2015

By Eoin Devereux

The Neepawa Banner

Bargaining sessions have begun between HyLife Foods and the UFCW Local 832, the union representing employees at the Neepawa plant. The current five-year contract is set to expire on Jan. 31, 2015 but will remain in effect until a settlement is reached.

Local 832 president and lead negotiator Jeff Traeger recently updated the union’s membership via video. In it, Traeger said preliminary discussions, which started in December, have been positive. He added that they’re looking forward to tackling some more specific issues over the next few weeks.

“The work we’ve been able to get done is to deal with some of the major issues that have been problematic in the collective agreement over the last little while. Things like cleaning up some issues on seniority, job postings and other such issues,” said Traeger. “Now, we’re moving into some of the meatier issues, talking about things like hours of work and overtime and those kind of issues.”  

Traeger noted that both sides have proposed several changes within the collective agreement. He said they are working through all those changes and once the two sides shift attention to the monetary portion of bargaining, the process should move ahead a lot quicker.

“We still haven’t gotten into the full monetary passes [sic] yet. There’s an awful lot of changes both parties have proposed into the collective agreement and we’re working our way through all those changes,” said Traeger.  “There is a lot of material to get through before we can get to that, but we are at the bargaining table all the way through January. We have the entire last week of January. Have a short break. Back again in February and then we’re back again in mid-February through to the end of February, when we plan on bringing negotiation to a head.”

Representatives with HyLife Foods could not be reach for comment before publication.