JBS workers approve three-year contract

GREELEY – Union production workers at the JBS USA packing plant in Greeley overwhelmingly approved a new three-year contract that raises pay and improves worker benefits, according to a union spokeswoman.

“This deal is all gains for everybody,´ said Linda Sughroue, a 25-year veteran worker at the plant who helped negotiate the new contract. “It’s all positive, nothing negative.”

Ninety-nine percent of the members of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 7 voted to approve the new contract, according to a union statement. Workers will get pay raises, health insurance with better coverage and lower co-pays and premiums that will not increase over the life of the contract.

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Workers will also get retroactive pay increases back to November, when the old contract expired. “It’s one of the best packinghouse contracts in the industry,´ said Kim Cordova, Local 7 president.

About 2,400 people are employed at the plant. The new contract, approved April 11, takes immediate effect.