Covered Bridge Chips Contract Agreement Reached, Strike Ends
HARTLAND–The strike by workers at Covered Bridge Potato Chips which began January 5 has ended.
After reaching a collective agreement last Friday, workers voted in favour of the deal Tuesday night and will return to work next Tuesday.
Carl Flanagan, national representative assigned to the Atlantic provinces for the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, said the union and the workers are pleased the strike has ended.
“After five months, we’re all very excited about the agreement and the opportunity to move forward,” Flanagan said.
“It’s a first collective agreement. It includes everything from a grievance procedure to recognition clauses, wages and seniority. That’s what the labour dispute was over: seniority clauses. We do have job security and seniority for hours of work. The things that we needed we have.”
The new contract is a three year agreement that is retroactive to January 1, 2016. Flanagan says the boycott of Covered Bridge Chips has been lifted and that it contributed much to ending the strike. He says the strike achieved what it was meant to.
“It got us our first collective agreement and that’s where the difficulty lies in New Brunswick. We don’t have first contract legislation so it’s very difficult to get a first contract,” Flanagan said. “We achieved all the things we were looking for in it.”
Patrick Colford, president of the New Brunswick Federation of Labour says the deal is a “victory.”
“It’s wonderful. It’s a victory definitely for those workers who were engaged in this labour dispute, but I think it’s also a victory for all workers. If we stick together, we can negotiate deals that best serve the interests of both parties,” he said.
Colford said workers he’s spoke with are excited to get back to work next Tuesday.
“During this whole thing they stood behind the products that Covered Bridge makes, and rightfully so. It’s a great product here in New Brunswick so they were in support of that product all along. It’s just due to the labour dispute, there was rocky ground to be had.”
With an agreement now reached, Colford is encouraging everyone to stock up on their favourite chips.
“We’re asking people wholeheartedly to support this product and support Covered Bridge chips,” he said.
Huddle reached out to Covered Bridge Potato Chips for comment, but we did not receive a response by the time of publication. The story will be updated accordingly if we hear back.