There is word that both sides in the Cargill labour dispute in High River are scheduled to talk this week.
Unless a new deal is worked out between the two sides, hundreds of workers will hit the bricks next Monday morning. They rejected the last offer from Cargill by a margin of 98 percent. Not long after, Cargill issued a lockout notice should workers walk off the job in less than a week.
A lot of folks are watching this carefully, including cattle producers in both Alberta and Saskatchewan. Melanie Wowk with Alberta Beef Producers says they remain confident both sides can work out a deal before the start of next week. The president of the Saskatchewan stock growers, Kelsey Elford says a labour disruption at the huge plant would be devastating, leading to a backlog of cattle and even more pressure on prices. "Cargill processes 36 percent of the animals that are processed in Canada. Right now, there is a lot of cull animals that are going to town. That means the volume is up and they need a place to go. If this plant ceases operations for even a day, that impacts the market, impacts people's livelihoods and we can't have that."
Producers are worried that a labour disruption would again create a huge backlog of cattle on the prairies as it did when the plant shut down for two weeks because of a COVID outbreak.
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