02 March 2005
Guild accuses Schneider Foods
of breaking
Ontario law
Company employing Wal-Mart tactics
in
refusing to bargain with head-office staff
Schneider
Officer Employees' Association | TNG
Canada Local 30009
Schneider Foods Corp. is breaking provincial law by refusing
to negotiate a new contract with its office employees in
Kitchener, TNG Canada/CWA contends in a complaint filed with
the Ontario Labour Relations Board.
The company has brought no concrete
proposals to the bargaining table since its collective
agreement with the Schneider Office Employees' Association
(SOEA), expired on Oct.
31, 2004. The two sides will be in a strike/lockout position
or "open period" as of 12:01 a.m. Monday,
March 7.
Art Lacroix, president of the 166-member
SOEA, says management has adopted Wal-Mart tactics and
deliberately manoeuvred itself into an "open position" so
that it can impose terms and conditions on employees.
Arnold Amber, Director of TNG Canada,
says the company's stonewalling is what led to the bad-faith
bargaining complaint. "We
contend that an employer must bargain wages, benefits, pensions
and other terms of a collective agreement. It's against the
law in Ontario not to," says Amber. "We hope the
Board will uphold the challenge, decide that the open period
was arrived at unfairly, and will order the company back
to the bargaining table."
Management appears to be flouting
Schneider's much-touted company values, including "integrity,
fairness and ethics in all business dealings."
"We've been beaten with that, over and over," says
Lacroix. "This company claims to be ethical. They can't
even abide by the law."
Furthermore, he says, it appears
that Maple Leaf Foods Inc., which took over Schneider Foods
last spring, is calling the shots in Kitchener and "we're
seeing more and more Wal-Mart type tactics."
Lacroix says he believes that Maple Leaf CEO Michael McCain's
corporate hero is Sam Walton, founder of Wal-Mart. The American
retailing behemoth came under international fire last month
when it announced it would close one of its stores in Quebec
where employees had six months earlier joined a union. It
was the first unionized Wal-Mart store in the world, but
the company refused to negotiate a collective agreement.
At Schneider, says Lacroix, four bargaining sessions and
two meetings with a conciliator yielded little but requests
by the company for a No Board Report, which was finally granted.
A survey of Guild members, who include administrative, finance,
information technology and clerical workers, revealed their
biggest concerns, in the face of the company merger with
Maple Leaf, are job security and severance packages.
|