The Rural Voice, 1978-08, Page 15Packers' strike
By Adrian Voa
On June 19. the Meat Packers Union
called a strike at the Swift Company
packing plants across the nation. Within a
few days Canada Packers closed its doors,
lacking out their workers. The smaller
packing plants tried to take up as much of
the slack as possible by working overtime
and on weekends.
The pork producers from their end. tried
to help as much as possible by holding
their hogs an extra week or two in their
barns in order to reduce the flow.
The price dropped from 569.42 in the
week ending June 17. to $63.25 on July 17.
Hans Feldman. who is president of the
Perth Pork Producer's Association, is very
concerned. He says that farmers are
holding back many hogs from shipping. but
that the net result is a build-up of heavy
hogs in the barns. The pens are not
designed for such large animals. and
serious overcrowding is the result. This in
turn casuses fighting. slow growth and poor
feed conversion. Then there is the problem
of what to do with the weaner pigs coming
in from the sow barn. They have to have a
place to go. so partly empty pens are put
together to make room and severe fighting
occurs.
Quite Bitter
Mr. Feldman is quite bitter about the
whole situation. He says: "It seems that
every time there is a labour dispute
somewhere. the farmer as innocent
bystander suffers. In today's society, with
today's technology, we depend too much
on the next fellow. A better system of
settling labour disputes is desperately
needed."
He says that labour needs bargaining
power. but that a system of compulsory
arbitration is overdue.
He thinks that at a time when consumer
groups are protesting so much against
farm marketing boards, which is the
bargainingunit of the farmer, and where
consumer representatives are on
marketing councils. that there also should
be consumer representation on labour
unions. Mr. Feldman deplores the
adversary system and thinks that the world
could do with a lot less controversy.
Indirectly
Mrs. James (Mickey) Nott, secretary of
the Huron Federation of Agriculture, who
with her husband operates a sow enter-
prise just outside of Clinton, is less
concerned. "But." she says. " we are
more indirectly affected than most. Our
Means drop in pork prices
build-up of heavy hogs
neighbour across the road had a hundred
head ready for shipping. but was told to
hold them for another week because the
packers couldn't handle any more. That's
tough. We still get more than a dollar a
pound for our weaners, so we don't
complain."
She has a great admiration for the small
packing plants for the way that they handle
the volume of hogs that they do.
Bruce county pork producers president
Elson Arnold has not heard of any specific
problems in his area. He had no holdback
reported to him and is mainly concerned
with the price drop of the last few weeks.
He thinks that the OPPMB is doing the
best job possible under the circumstances.
Doug Farrel of Hastings county, the vice
chairman of the OPPMB said in an
interview with the media that pork
producers are losing five dollars per hog
becuase of the strike situation.
Dayre Peer. general manager of the
board concurs. He suspects that some
manipulating is going on in North America
As an example he says that beef supplies
dropped sharply until July, but contrary to
the law of supply and demand, beef prices
dropped also. Then, when supplies in-
creased as much as eight percent. prices
increased.
The same happened to the hog market
May prices were much too high for tht
supply, but they went up with the future ,
prices. When the inevitable adjustment
came. there was over -reaction and prices
are now too low for the supply at hand. Mr
Peer expects that prices will adjust tk,
justified levels very soon.
Now let's look at the figures. In the week
beforethestrike. the Ontario pool price was
S69.42; this was S3.09 above Omaha price.
One week into the strike Ontario's price
was 566.49 or 54.49 over the Omaha price.
A month into the strike, on July 17, the
Toronto price was $63.25 or S.48 above the
Omaha price. In all these cases we
cisregar ded the valuta difference. The
variation in the difference is 52.61 per
hundred weight or about S4.75 per hog.
Beat to Market
Mr. Peer is not too pleased with the
reaction of many producers to the
recommendations of the board's sale.
division. He suspects that some producers
are trying to beat their neighbours to the
market. As a result there are more small
hogs than normal coming to market on
Monday and Tuesday. The responsible
producers, who are trying to help the
market as much as possible. are lef'
holding heavy hogs. Sometimes it is
necessary to ship lighter hogs, he
concedes, but there are too many coming 11
on those two days to be a coincidence.
Nevertheless, he doesn't think that thea
are more hogs held back on the farm than
could be handled when the strike ends.
The pork marketing board receives ver
little news about progress of the strik
talks, Mr. Peer says. Apparently the
has been offered a package of an b .
increase over the first year, but the
membership has not been consulted if
they are willing to accept this offer. It
appears that demand for an increased
pension is the focal point.
Ontario producers have been ver,
fortunate in that Quebec packers have been
buying increased numbers of Ontario hogs.
In the first week of the strike they bpught
about 400 head and in the week ending
July 14 they had bought 7.500 head.
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TILE RURAL VOICE/AUGUST 1978 PG. 15