This summer, I wrote an article regarding dairy workers in Edmonton, who are trying to negotiate a new collective agreement.
These 100 or so workers are employed by Agropur Dairy Cooperative at their Edmonton milk processing plant, where they process raw milk into pasteurized milk, creamers, yogurt, and sour cream products.
Based out of Québec, Agropur is the largest dairy cooperative in Canada and one of the leading suppliers of dairy products in the retail, food service, and industrial sectors in North America.
Their most recent collective agreement expired this past May; however, the employer did not meet with the workers’ bargaining team until the end of July to begin bargaining on the replacement agreement.
The initial proposal from the employer was pretty sparse, being just 2 pages long, but the workers’ initial proposal was much more comprehensive at nearly 80 pages long.
Last week, Local 401 of the United Food and Commercial Workers, which represents these workers, posted an update regarding negotiations. In it, they state that earlier this month, Agropur tabled a comprehensive offer.
They are asking for a 5-year collective agreement, which would be retroactive to this past May and expire in May 2031.
Their offer included a 10.5% wage increase over the life of the collective agreement:
| 31 May 2026* | 3.00% |
| 30 May 2027 | 2.50% |
| 28 May 2028 | 2.00% |
| 27 May 2029 | 1.50% |
| 26 May 2030 | 1.50% |
| 10.50% |
In their initial proposal, the workers had proposed 10% per year, so Agropur is basically asking for as much over the entire contract as the workers were demanding in just their first year.
That is a wide gap.
In other news, Agropur has offered to nearly double to meal allowance for overtime workers, from $7.50 to $14.00. Workers asked for $25.00
They are willing to add National Day for Truth and Reconciliation to the list of paid holidays, which is used to determine stat pay. This would bring the total number of paid holidays to 12.
Under the previous agreement, the employer had to give 60 hours notice for shift changes. They have agreed to changed that to 72 hours, which is what the workers proposed.
Shift premiums would also increase if workers adopt the company’s offer, from 90¢ an hour to $1.25 an hour.
They also want to simplify severance pay to 1.5 weeks for every years of continuous service. Currently, it is 1 week of pay for the first 2 years, then 1 week every other year, but to maximum of 15 weeks. Workers had asked for 2 weeks per year.
Agropur is willing to double the amount of time—from 15 minutes to 30 minutes—the union gets to present to new workers during orientation. This is how much time the workers had proposed.
They have agreed to increase parental and adoption leave to 62 weeks from 37 weeks—which is what the workers tabled—as well as increase from 2 days to 3 days for parents to take off work at the birth of their child. The workers had asked for 14 days at birth.
Family leave would be renamed personal and family responsibility leave and increase from 5 days to 6 days. It would still be unpaid leave though. The workers wanted paid leave; although they were fine keeping it at 5 days.
They want to change bereavement leave from 1 week’s pay to 5 days’ pay, which is functionally the same thing. Workers wanted it increased to 2 weeks. They did offer to increase bereavement leave for piblings and niblings from 1 day to 2 days; although the workers had offered 5 days.
They are willing to increase their contribution to the union’s dental care plan from 45¢ per hour worked per worker to 46¢.
Related to that, they have agreed to increase their contribution to the union’s education and training fund from 10¢ per hour to 11¢ per hour. This would increase to 12¢ in May 2028 and 13¢ in May 2030.
Pension payments would increase from $1.25 per hour worked to $1.50 per hour worked.
However, they want to increase the probationary period for new hires from 360 hours to 480 hours, which works out to about 3 weeks on a 40-hour workweek.
The bargaining plans to hold an information meeting tomorrow to answer questions regarding the offer. Voting will begin the following day in person at the worksite and online this Thursday (29th) and Friday (30th).
The bargaining team felt that the employer could have offered more in their proposal and has recommended that workers vote to reject it.
