{"id":321414,"date":"2025-12-02T22:35:13","date_gmt":"2025-12-02T22:35:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/321414\/"},"modified":"2025-12-02T22:35:13","modified_gmt":"2025-12-02T22:35:13","slug":"crown-royal-maker-union-reach-deal-over-ontario-plant-closure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/321414\/","title":{"rendered":"Crown Royal maker, union reach deal over Ontario plant closure"},"content":{"rendered":"

The company behind Crown Royal has reached a deal with the union representing workers at its soon-to-be shuttered Ontario plant over its closure.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

British distiller Diageo announced in August it was\u00a0shuttering its bottling facility<\/a> in Amherstburg, Ont., and that bottling at the factory intended for the U.S. market would be shifting stateside, while bottling for Canadian consumers would move to its Valleyfield, Que., location.<\/p>\n

The plant is scheduled to close in February 2026, affecting 168 unionized employees and potentially impacting the local economy.<\/p>\n

Diageo has said the decision to close the facility is unrelated to tariffs from United States President Donald Trump, adding it made similar decisions in the United States, Italy and Scotland.<\/p>\n

Global News was told the agreement includes severance and separation enhancement payments based on seniority, benefit continuation beyond closure and investments in Unifor\u2019s action centre for re-training. It was approved by 89 per cent of Unifor Local 200 members.<\/p>\n

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Unifor said in a statement its members have the option to leave their positions immediately or remain until the plant closes in February.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe fought hard to keep the jobs here,\u201d said Unifor President Lana Payne.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"Get<\/p>\n

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Get the day’s top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not the outcome we wanted, but in the end, we acted to secure the best possible outcome for our members while they still had the protection of their collective agreement.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Click<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tFord renews threat to pull Crown Royal and Smirnoff from LCBO amid production spat\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

A week after Diageo announced the closure, Ontario Premier Doug Ford \u2014 in a viral moment of protest \u2014\u00a0poured out an entire bottle of Crown Royal<\/a>\u00a0at a news conference to signal his displeasure and bashed the company\u2019s move as ill-conceived.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month<\/a>, Ford escalated his fight with Diageo, threatening to \u201cleverage\u201d the purchasing power of the LCBO and pull Crown Royal and Smirnoff vodka \u2014 another Diageo product \u2014 off store shelves.<\/p>\n

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Ford pointed to the $765 million the LCBO spends on Diageo\u2019s products and complained that the company executives behind the decision who decided to target their \u201clargest customer in North America\u201d have \u201chalf a brain.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Amherstburg Mayor Michael Prue told councillors in October that Ford has said there are three companies interested in taking over Diageo\u2019s plant.<\/p>\n

A Diageo spokesperson previously told Global News it hasn\u2019t been approached for a takeover, but would \u201cengage\u201d in talks<\/a> after it reached a deal with the union.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Click<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t1:05
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tLeBlanc \u2018really enjoyed\u2019 watching Ford pour out bottle of Crown Royal\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

John D\u2019Agnolo, president of Unifor Local 200, said in Tuesday\u2019s statement the local will continue to work with Amherstburg and the provincial government to attract a new employer to the facility.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not giving up on these workers or this community,\u201d D\u2019Agnolo said.<\/p>\n

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\u201cOur goal now is to bring new investment into Amherstburg and ensure these skilled workers have access to good, stable jobs for the long term.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014 With files from Global News\u2019 Isaac Callan<\/a>,\u00a0Gabby Rodrigues<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Colin D\u2019Mello<\/a><\/p>\n

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\n\t\t&copy 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The company behind Crown Royal has reached a deal with the union representing workers at its soon-to-be shuttered…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":103622,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[45,49,48,85992,8334,13404],"class_list":["post-321414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canada-economy","tag-donald-trump-tariffs","tag-ontario-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=321414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321414\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=321414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=321414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=321414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}