Monthly Archives: July 2024

On June 18, about 170 migrant agricultural workers at four Highline Mushrooms factory farms in Abbotsford, B.C., joined UFCW Local 1518.  

This is the first group of migrant agricultural workers in Canada to collectively exercise their fundamental right to join a union for many years, and this victory reflects Highline Mushrooms workers’ courage and determination. The key concerns for the workers at Highline Mushrooms are improving health and safety, ensuring a safe and fair work environment, being treated with dignity and respect, and the ability to bargain collectively.

Migrant agricultural workers are some of the most vulnerable workers in Canada, unprotected while working for international agrifood conglomerates that are worth billions. The mushroom industry is built on the labor of the migrant agricultural workers who staff the farms, working long, grueling hours, being paid by the piece or making barely over minimum wage. Workers can be fired and deported back to their home countries for minor reasons, with little to no protection or recourse. The victory at Highline Mushrooms farms is a major step forward to changing the industry.

“This victory is important because the union, UFCW 1518, now represents us, and we now have the support and ability to truly assert our rights as migrant workers,” said Ulises, a Highline Mushrooms worker. “With the support of our union, the UFCW, we will achieve greater dignity and respect, better working conditions, proper PPE, and more.”

“Congratulations to our newest UFCW 1518 members at Highline Mushrooms for asserting their rights and demanding that their voices are heard,” said UFCW Local 1518 President Patrick Johnson. “These workers are an essential part of the B.C. workforce and community. We look forward to sitting down with the employer as soon as possible to negotiate a fair collective agreement.”

Through a complex corporate structure, Highline Mushrooms is a subsidiary of the Japanese-owned Sumitomo conglomerate, which also owns the agri-food giant Fyffes. The company has pledged to defend human and labor rights in its business principles, including core promises about respecting the fundamental labor rights of workers based on freedom of association as defined by the International Labour Organization.

“Labor rights are human rights, and we are proud to welcome Highline Mushrooms workers into our UFCW family,” said National President of UFCW Canada Shawn Haggerty. “We are also looking forward to developing a constructive relationship with Highline and its parent company Sumitomo-Fyffes as social partners committed to advancing decent work and socially sustainable supply chains for the agrifood sector.”

Police Officers in Annapolis, Md., who are represented by UFCW Local 400, recently ratified a strong, new contract that improves the pay scale, as well as health benefits and working conditions.

The two-year contract, which covers 100 Annapolis Police Officers, establishes a new pay scale that reduces the number of years officers must work to reach the top of the scale and provides a 6 percent increase, on average, over the life of the agreement. It also increases retiree health and welfare benefits and expands the use of take-home vehicles for SWAT Team members.

The new contract also includes the following key provisions:

• Including the rank of Lieutenant in the bargaining unit.
• Ensuring that at least one union steward will be in attendance at the Chief’s Advisory Board meetings.
• Filling temporary job openings with officers currently on promotional lists and allowing their time in those positions to count toward probation if promoted.
• Adding Thanksgiving as a holiday paid at an additional half time pay if worked.
• Clarifying how voluntary and non-voluntary overtime is assigned.
• Establishing a new city-wide tuition reimbursement program.
• Adding an optional additional fifth year to the Deferred Retirement Option Plan.
• Providing a $20,000 signing bonus to new hires (not included in the contract, but agreed to in bargaining).

“In the long run, the new pay scale will be extremely beneficial to officers and new hires won’t have to wait as long for their raises,” said Officer 1st Class T.J. Woolfolk, who is UFCW Local 400’s lead police shop steward. “And retiree health care will be split 60/40 with the city, an improvement over the previous 50/50. In any bargaining, you always want to do better, but I’m very appreciative of where management met us and felt that we brokered the best deal possible.”

UFCW Local 400 has represented Annapolis Police Officers since 1980.