Canada, ON: Workers reach final deal as Diageo closes Crown Royal plant in Amherstburg

The union representing workers at the closing Diageo Crown Royal plant in Amherstburg says it’s reached a final deal for its members who will be out of a job next February.

Members of Unifor Local 200 met Sunday, November 30 to ratify the company’s final offer. That means the plant closure plan is irreversible, says John D’Agnolo, Local 200 president. The roughly 160 unionized workers there have the option to leave now, or stay until the plant closes.

He says that workers voted 89 per cent in favour of the deal on November 30.

Premier Doug Ford has said the provincial government will protest the closure by pulling Crown Royal off its shelves at the LCBO next year. The union urged the province to "fight like hell" to keep the plant open.

But D’Agnolo says he believes the closure was always a done deal.

“I think the decision was already made, to be quite frank with you,” he said.

“We were hoping with the loss of sales that they'd look at it different, and they did not … They had made their mind up and they were not changing it.”

For its part, the company said Crown Royal whisky will continue to be mashed, distilled and aged in Canada, but the move was an effort to shift "some bottling volume to be closer to its many U.S. Crown Royal consumers."

"Diageo will maintain its significant footprint across Canada, including at our Canadian headquarters and warehouse operations in the Greater Toronto Area and other bottling and distillation facilities in Gimli, Manitoba and Valleyfield, Quebec," the company said earlier this year.

The Amherstburg facility has bottled Crown Royal since 1971.

Doug Benekritis is the plant chair for Diageo workers with Unifor Local 200. He's focused on supporting his members through the closure.

"I don't think anybody should boycott anything. We fought hard to keep the jobs here. Unfortunately, at the end of the day, we weren't successful in keeping the jobs in Amherstburg. So we negotiated the best closure agreement we can."

D’Agnolo says the closure deal was as good as it could be under the circumstances. Closure negotiations are tender because the company can always walk away, leaving its workers with only the minimum required by the government.

“You’re in a position where you have to do what you can to get as much as you can for the members,” he said. “After the (Dec. 2) deadline, we have no contract.”

The workers, D’Agnolo said, are “devastated.”

“It was sad, regardless of what we got for them and I think it was substantial,” he said.

“It was still sad signing the final document.”

There is hope for future jobs at the site. The Town of Amhersburg says it's already heard from a few companies interested in developing the bottling facility.