About 800 members of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union are awaiting a report from the conciliator appointed by the Ontario Ministry of Labour.
Canco bought the plant at Leamington in 2014 after Heinz shut down operations and shifted its processing to the United States. A group of plant managers and executives formed Canco to buy the plant, then they bargained hard to reduce tomato prices.
The tensions prompted the province, via its Ontario Farm Products Marketing Council, to dismiss the directors of the Ontario Vegetable Processors Marketing board and to appoint its vice-chairman, Elmer Buchanan, a former NDP agriculture minister, to negotiate a new contract.
Now it appears the company is bargaining hard with its 800 union members.
