Trucking companies announce merger

By Collin Gallant on December 9, 2017.

Medicine Hat News

Two trucking companies that each have operations in Medicine Hat are becoming one.

Manitoulin Transport is again expanding after the national long-hauler announced the purchase of Alberta-based Duckerings on Wednesday, saying it will expand options for customer delivery.

The terms were not disclosed, and company officials wouldn’t comment on local operational matters when contacted by the News.

Red Deer-based Duckerings delivers less-than-a-truckload freight to 400 locations in the province from terminals in Medicine Hat, Brooks and Lethbridge, as well as Calgary, Camrose, Edmonton and Fort McMurray.

For the Hat, it contracts local operator Reiger’s Terminal in Redcliff. Owner Kevin Kerner, who handles freight for seven major transport firms including local deliveries, also said he is waiting to hear how local operations may be affected by the sale.

Manitoulin has operated a terminal in the Medicine Hat Southwest Industrial area since 2011. At that time it bought Hat-based Exalta Transport and related companies that serviced all four western provinces.

Beef plant contract

Workers at Alberta’s second largest beef packing plant have a new contract. Cargill and United Food and Commercial Workers 401 ratified a new four-year agreement covering about 1,800 employees at the company’s High River plant.

Terms were settled on Oct. 27 after a strike vote was taken, according to new details released by the Alberta Labour ministry.

The deal provides blanket raises of between 30- and 45-cents per hour in each year, moving the current starting wage on the production floor to $19.95 per hour. At contract’s end in 2020, that rate would be $21.15.

The High River plant is one of two major facilities that process the vast majority of beef in Alberta.

The other is the JBS Canada plant in Brooks, where a current union contract is set to expire on Dec. 31, 2017.