Teamsters To Lose Jobs In Broadview-Darigold Merger Union Had Just Opened Negotiations With Darigold For New Contract
More than 80 Darigold employees, most of them Teamsters, will lose their jobs now that Darigold Inc. and Broadview Dairy are consolidating their Spokane processing plants. And the joint processing and distribution operation will likely be based at the Darigold-owned plant in North Spokane.
Darigold Inc. and Broadview Dairy announced Wednesday they would join their processing operations to improve efficiency and expand distribution for both brands. All Darigold employees will lose their jobs, though Broadview, which is to be the majority owner of the merged processor, has encouraged the workers to apply at the new operation to be called Inland Northwest Dairies, L.L.C.
On the same day as the merger announcement, Teamsters Union 582 met with Darigold authorities to negotiate a labor contract that had expired in May. It was all for naught since the 85 jobs, including those of 64 Teamsters, will soon be over.
“It was a shock to all of us. We didn’t know anything about it,” said Denny Young, secretary-treasurer of the Teamsters in Spokane. “There are no negotiations now except for severance packages for those who will be laid off.”
“The impact on them is going to be devastating,” said Young. “Many are senior people who were looking forward to retirement.”
Broadview, which is owned by Goodale & Barbieri Cos., at one time had Teamster workers, but the union was defeated after a contract dispute and 13-week strike that ended in January, 1996.
The Teamsters Union will not be represented at the new operation unless the workers organize and vote it in, Young said.
Breaking the union had nothing to do with the deal between Darigold and Broadview, said Doug Marshall, spokesman for Seattle-based Darigold. “We are not anti-union,” he said, adding that the dairy employs union workers at other plants.
Both dairies employ members of the International Union of Operating Engineers. Those workers will keep their union contracts at the joint operation, Marshall said. The operation will also continue to employ Teamster employees in the dairies’ Eastern Washington distribution plants outside of Spokane.
The two dairies are still working out the terms of the merger and have set a tentative completion date of Sept. 1. Darigold, a Seattle-based cooperative of dairy farmers, has already told its members that the merged company will lease Darigold’s facilities at 33 E. Francis.
The fate of the historic Broadview Dairy building at 411 W. Cataldo Ave. is still undetermined, said Art Coffey, vice president and chief operating officer of Inland Northwest Dairies Inc., a subsidiary of the owner of the building, Goodale & Barbieri. Coffey said Broadview and Darigold haven’t yet made a decision about the location of the new processing operations. It could continue for a while in both places, he said.
Both plants have been running at about 50 percent of capacity, said Marshall. “The Darigold plant could easily handle twice as much production,” he said.
The Broadview Dairy building contains a museum where visitors can tour an operating dairy and the Caterina Winery. The building is also one of a rare few in the United States that still houses the industry for which it was built. It was erected in 1911 for the Broadview Dairy.
, DataTimes