Striking Beaulieu Canada Workers Reject Offer

Acton Vale, Quebec, Canada, Aug. 15, 2008--Striking workers at Beaulieu Canada have overwhelmingly rejected the company's latest contract offer, according to The Gazette newspaper.

The 226 of the 300 unionized employees who cast their ballots voted 91.5 per cent against the proposed pact to replace the last collective agreement that expired at the end of November 2006.

The bargaining team for UNITE HERE (Union of Needletrades, Textiles and Industrial Employees/Restaurant Employees International Employees Union), had directed members to turn down the offer.

Union representative Éric Labelle told the newspaper that Beaulieu wants to cut salaries by 20 percent, which average about $17.50 an hour, as well as reductions to statutory holidays, vacations and company contributions to insurance plans.

He noted Beaulieu has been seeking such concessions since April 2007 and last May went to the negotiating table asking the workers to accept a 30 percent wage cut in addition to the other provisions.

"It's completely absurd," Lina Aristeo, Quebec council director of UNITE HERE, said in mid-June when the members staged a study day as a pressure tactic. "Beaulieu Canada is asking its workers to give up a major part of rights acquired over 40 years."

The June 15 study day turned into an unlimited general strike.

Those employees manufacture commercial carpeting in plant No. 3 in Acton Vale, home to the company's headquarters.

Another 46 UNITE HERE members making bath mats in adjoining plant No. 4 are unaffected by the current labor dispute.

Beaulieu last month closed its spinning factory in neighouring Wickham, where yarn was made that it used mostly to manufacture carpets for the new housing construction market in Canada.

The types of yarn produced in Wickham is now outsourced to a related facility in the U.S.

That move eliminated eight management positions and about 110 union jobs with workers affiliated with the commercial wing of the Confédération des syndicats nationaux.

Related Topics:Beaulieu International Group