Castanet

http://www.castanet.net/news/Canada/818 ... ods-halted


Hmmm now the plot thickens.

I was trying not not think they had anything to hide and maybe it was just a mistake,,, now they lay off workers while inspections were rolling.
Its almost as if there is something that shouldnt come up,,, like, is production being prefered by the higher ups then cleaning and managing the machinery? Is it a numbers thing like so many other places? I dunno but while they were allowing the system to view its operations I was holding back any thoughts but this turns a different page now.
Seems the more we want to eat (population growing) the more some plants try to shove it at us, how ever they can.
Managment wants it on the truck so supervisors stretch cleaning schedules an hour here and two hours there and one little mistake, enough to make people sick? Why? Because money is important, other things are not?
I dont know what went wrong here yet but I would like to see them get back to it and solve it no matter who's fault it is and correct it.

Jennifer Ditchburn
The Canadian Press

Inspections at XL beef plant to resume as company rescinds layoffs

OTTAWA—The meat processing company at the centre of an E. coli outbreak is recalling 800 workers it laid off only a day earlier, breaking an impasse that kept federal inspectors from completing their review of the operation.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency's (CFIA) evaluation of XL Foods ground to a halt this weekend when the firm announced it was temporarily laying off 2,000 workers at its plant in Brooks, Alta. Federal inspectors said they had nothing to inspect without the workers handling the beef.

The company blamed the layoff decision on the fact the federal government hadn’t given it a firm date for when it would get its licence back to fully resume operations.

But late Sunday afternoon, XL Foods put out a news release saying it was recalling 800 workers to help the CFIA finish its job.

The inspectors are currently halfway through a review of how XL employees process 5,100 beef carcasses. If they’re satisfied with what they see, XL could get its licence back.

“We look forward to actively working with CFIA to bring this to a viable and timely resolution to allow the plant to recommence operations,” Brian Nilsson, co-CEO of XL Foods, said in the release.

That was a different tone than one the company struck just a day earlier, when they urged the CFIA to come to a “swift and viable resolution,” apparently without the help of the workers.

Lee Nilsson, fellow co-CEO, had also made a pointed reference to the federal agency in an interview Friday with the Alberta Farmer Express.

“There seems to be an uncertainty as to which direction CFIA is going with regard to E. coli at my plant, or any other plant in the country,” he said.

Full article
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/arti ... th-layoffs

Well good, maybe the issue can be resolved now,,, still makes me onder why they would lay them off in the first place.

Money. They paid the workers for the last 3 weeks while the plant was shut down - guess they figured enough was enough.

oneh2obabe wrote:Money. They paid the workers for the last 3 weeks while the plant was shut down - guess they figured enough was enough.

They will likely write that off, they just wont be raking in bonuses while its going on so it probably wasnt a good move, lay off some where the inspections are not happening,,, I could see that but when there is an error of great size they risk this kind of investigation, even if not their fault. Thats what happens with food production. To shut it all down during investigations just doesnt seem smart.

oneh2obabe wrote:Money. They paid the workers for the last 3 weeks while the plant was shut down - guess they figured enough was enough.

Ironic that had they listened to the workers concerns there would never have been a problem or a shut down.

steven lloyd wrote:

oneh2obabe wrote:Money. They paid the workers for the last 3 weeks while the plant was shut down - guess they figured enough was enough.

Ironic that had they listened to the workers concerns there would never have been a problem or a shut down.

Problem there is workers are just that, workers and their concerns are worthless to management, yet, they are usually the ones who see something wrong first, managements have thick heads and lots doesnt get in there, till its a real problem.
Workers will say something to save this kind of set back and managements need to take it seriously. I have been laughed at for trying to save an incident,,, I laughed last once when it did go wrong, luckily it wasnt a really big issue but it could have been and it did cause trouble.

I think part of the problem is when business gets that big there is a disconnect between top and bottom. I believe that sometimes the real truth does not get from the bottom floor to the top floor. It dies in between and never really gets looked after. I like to think they are not covering up anything important. More like do "don't tell me about it, do what you have to do to fix it" and it never trully gets fixed. Sometimes it takes a lot of hard pushing for a problem like this to bring it totally to light. Sometimes people on the bottom end, workers and first line management aren't prepared to push as hard as is necessary. I would think that many of these workers who are brought in from out of country don't speak good english and are also scared of loosing their jobs which also doesn't help. Hopefully this problem will bring things to light and the system will improve.

The layoffs struck me as a corporate tizzy fit or temper tantrum. XL wants their license reinstated so they can carry on business. They slaughter 1/3 of the beef supply of Canada. This is the time of year when markets for beef are most active - cattle have come off summer range. A typical age for commercial slaughter is 18 months which gives around a 1200 lb animal. For the rancher, calves are born in late winter and early spring. The only way to make any sort of profit is for cows and calves to go onto summer graze, calves are weaned in the fall, rising yearlings are wintered on dry feed or sold for somebody else to raise to market size. They don't reach that size for about another year after weaning, so they are fed forage through their first and usually only winter, then onto graze again to grow towards market size. By their second autumn, they are approaching slaughter weight and it's a matter of finishing them. Few ranchers carry beef cattle past this age or even this far - they are mostly in feeder facilities.

So, suddenly this matter of a huge slaughter facility is scaring the bejeebers out of the cattle industry who really have just kind of righted themself since the BSE thing. The other 2 large slaughter facilities can only operate to their given maximum, which they are pretty much at. The result is a slowing market which depresses price. The rancher, based on auction results I looked up this morning is getting about $1.22/lb (live weight) for his 1000 lb steers, a little less for heifers in that weight class. At that, with winter coming on and necessity to feed as summer grazing is behind him, ranchers or feed lots really can't afford the risk of having to dry feed those 15 to 20 month old beef into a second winter.

At the same time, ranchers are supplyng perfectly fit for human consumption product and not getting much for it while the risk of greater input cost looms over their heads. XL pretty much failed their supply customers (cattle producers) by ruin through poor handling/processing of the rancher's good product. It doesn't take much to figure out that continuing to be of poor service to the supply will ultimately effect XL's supply in negative ways.

In the mean time XL is losing money - can't sell their product and probably having to pay carrying costs on cattle already bought in their supply line. Then there has been wages getting paid at whatever rate they have to pay during a work stoppage. Then good old CFIA who let this matter slip to the point of sickness and ruined food are now taking their time to be thorough. Whether anybody thinks of it or not, ultimately it is the CFIA that is responsible for assuring food safety and they messed up with another mass supplier. So, XL has a lot of motivation to get back into pumping out product - safe or not. 2000 people hitting the EI line simultaneous to the beef industry legitimelty saying that something has to give would probably seem like a real good tool to strong arm the government into fast tracking a return of licensing. Not right on any front. The government never should have allowed Canada's food supply to fall victim to the corporate mass production model. It's shakey and unsafe on too many fronts. The way this is being handled, I don't see any good end to it, only a band-aide until next time.

the plain truth is the workers should all be fired not laid off.
they are the ones in the end who chose to work in filth and put out bad quality food.
A doctor unhappy with health care doesnt have the right to preform bad operations does he?
there is alot of people passing the buck in this.
the company laid off workers because they were not allowed to sell meat untill all the workers were watched and inspected so by laying them off there was no workers to inspect.
sort of a catch 22 isnt it.
obviously the company itself is low quality employment as the have to hire employee's from other countries, time the entire place was closed and start from scratch.
if anyone believes the company and old workers in this plant are suddenly going to change their ways and provide safe quality food you are fooling yourself.

keith1612 wrote:the plain truth is the workers should all be fired not laid off.
they are the ones in the end who chose to work in filth and put out bad quality food.
A doctor unhappy with health care doesnt have the right to preform bad operations does he?
there is alot of people passing the buck in this.
the company laid off workers because they were not allowed to sell meat untill all the workers were watched and inspected so by laying them off there was no workers to inspect.
sort of a catch 22 isnt it.
obviously the company itself is low quality employment as the have to hire employee's from other countries, time the entire place was closed and start from scratch.
if anyone believes the company and old workers in this plant are suddenly going to change their ways and provide safe quality food you are fooling yourself.

Give me a break. Why is it when MANAGEMENT screws up, GOVERNMENT screws up, the only ones that suffer are the public and the employees? Management should be fined and Harpers cronie should resign.