By Allan Dowd
VANCOUVER, British Columbia (Reuters) - Union officials on
Thursday sparred with Viterra Inc.
Leaders of the Grain Services Union were deciding how to respond to the company's announcement late on Wednesday that it will institute the new wage system that ties wage increase to worker and company performance beginning July 7.
"We think we have offered a fantastic package, and we believe that we will have full attendance on Monday. It's business as usual," Mike Brooks, the company's chief information officer, said on Thursday.
Viterra, a name adopted by Saskatchewan Wheat Pool after its takeover last year of rival Agricore United, is in a contract dispute with some 200 unionized employees at its headquarters and as many as 750 grain elevator workers in Saskatchewan.
The workers voted last month to reject the company's last contract offer.
The union on Thursday disputed Viterra's claims that the offer would raise workers' wages by 27 percent over five years.
Viterra had not formally agreed to pay the higher wages to all the workers, aside from an initial signing bonus, and the offer included some money that employees were already scheduled to receive, the union said.
The two sides are also at odds over issues such as job classifications, hours of work and benefits.
Viterra said changing the system for granting pay hikes would make the workers' contracts similar to those for the rest of its nearly 4,000-employee work force, most of whom are not unionized.
Unionized grain elevator workers in Alberta and Manitoba have agreed to the change.
The company has said it was instituting the new contract in the form of a "rotating lockout" but said the lockout would not physically keep the workers from being at their workplaces.
A company notice posted on the union's website said employees who did not report for work under the new contract terms as scheduled would be subject to discipline.
(Editing by Gary Hill)
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