After many months of a sugar shortage caused by a strike over workers’ pay and conditions at Vancouver’s Rogers Sugar refinery, a deal has finally been reached.
This means the sugar shortage may soon be over.
The workers’ union, the Public and Private Workers of Canada Local 8, announced the ratified five year deal with Rogers Sugar’s parent company, Lantic Inc, on Thursday, February 1st.
The union says employees voted 94% in favour of the deal which would see increases to health benefits, wages and maintaining a work life balance for our members.
Initially, the strike was announced following the company trying to implement changes to the schedule without consulting the approximately 140 workers.
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What the company is trying to impose on the workers is the ‘continuous shift,’ which would force workers to be at the factory seven days a week.
Rogers also proposed to them working 12-hour shifts so they would only need to schedule two shifts per day — a day and night shift.
This change could potentially even end up with the company cutting some of their staff.
“We value that weekend time to be with our families and do not want to lose that,” said the worker’s union.
“Work-life balance is very important to us and spending more time at work than with your family does not support that.”
The strike lasted four months as the workers announced their strike on September 28th, 2023.
