Hourly workers at the Park Farms poultry processing plant in Canton approve a new labor contract Saturday with prospective buyer Case Farms.
Case Farms, a large poultry farming and processing company with operations in Winesburg, has been negotiating for several weeks to buy the assets of Park Farms.
The union that represents the workers, United Food and Commercial Workers Local 880 in Cleveland, did not release a vote total Monday.
There were 154 workers represented by the union in December.
That was when Park Farms revealed it was up for sale and planned to lay off its entire work force of 225 employees — hourly and salaried workers — on Friday .
Barb Caruso, Akron coordinator for Local 880, said in a letter to hourly workers released last Friday that if the contract is approved, Case will do “everything possible to reopen the plant on March 19.”
Only Park Farms workers who filled out a job application with Case were permitted to vote on Saturday. All workers submitting applications would be hired, the letter said.
Caruso noted in the letter that Case does not have to hire any Park Farms employees. Under federal law, the buyer in an asset sale does not have to accept an existing labor contract.
Pact includes raises
The three-year contract gives workers a full-time job with seniority and vacations intact, health care, hiring bonuses and 2 percent raises in the second and third years.
Pay starts at $9 an hour plus a 25-cents-an-hour cost-of-living increase for returning workers. The contract eliminates an annual bonus and calls for a two-tier wage system, with new employees starting at $9 an hour but not getting cost-of-living increases until January 2015.
According to the Case Farms website, the company processes 1.8 million birds a week, and has more than 2,500 employees.
Katie Byard can be reached at 330-996-3781 or kbyard@thebeaconjournal.com.
