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BOYCOTT CAMPAIGN HITS SUPERIOR POULTRY SALES
PV Vancouver Bureau
(This article is from the October 16-31/2000 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.)
THE CONSUMER BOYCOTT by striking Superior Poultry workers won an important victory in September, when four Costco stores in the Lower Mainland decided to stop selling chicken produced by scab workers. The Costco stores in Vancouver, Burnaby, Port Coquitlam and Abbotsford had been selling virtually all of the output from Superior's Coquitlam plant, under the Valley Farms label.
Other Costco stores in Surrey and Richmond sold Sunrise and Lilydale poultry products, both from union/UFCW plants. After a leafleting campaign, the four offending stores finally agreed to stop doing business with Superior Poultry, where 225 members of UFCW Local 1518 have been on strike for a first contract since July 23.
"This is an important win for our union members - Costco backed down after they realized we weren't going away," said Local 1518 President Brooke Sundin. "Our goal throughout our relationship with Superior Poultry has been to sit down and negotiate a fair first collective agreement. The company has consistently demonstrated contempt for the rights of its workers to have a collective agreement - that's what resulted in the leafleting campaign with the company's customers. And we have only just begun."
UFCW Local 1518 won a Supreme Court of Canada ruling in 1999 that upholds the right to distribute leaflets, an important tool for galvanizing public support.
The striking workers also have the backing of the BC Federation of Labour and other unions, in what has been called one of the ugliest labour disputes in recent BC history.
But true to past form, the strongly anti-union company has continued its campaign of disinformation against the union. Local 1518 reports that instead of negotiating in good faith, the company keeps attacking the union and its members, persists in violating the labour relations code, perpetuates racist stereotypes (while calling the union "racist") and maintains a goon squad which it refers to as "videographers." Conservative estimates place the cost of the company's tactics so far at $400,000-$500,000.
As reported in the Sept. 16-30 People's Voice, the issues at the heart of this battle include forced overtime, wages and benefits that are far below industry standards, and random and unjust discipline and punishments - all factors which led the poultry workers to organize into a union.
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