Workload concerns
prompted milk strike
threat

The tentative deal reached yesterday between Meadow Gold Dairies Hawaii and its unionized workers removes one hurdle for the state's sole remaining milk processor, but the company now faces the tall task of meeting local demand.

Meadow Gold reached an accord with the Teamsters on a new five-year contract in the pre-dawn hours yesterday, averting a feared strike that could have upset the flow of milk, cheese, ice cream and other dairy items.

The company has assured its customers that it will be able to fill the void left by its rival Foremost, which announced recently that it was abandoning the dairy processing business and has turned all of its dairy processing over to Meadow Gold.

But Meadow Gold customers say doing so will be a major challenge.

"It's a great big relief, but now we gotta get to work," said Daniel Bulatao, operations manager of Dave's Hawaiian Ice Cream.

In addition to its own branded ice cream, Dave's makes Meadow Gold's ice cream under a subcontracting arrangement and is bracing for a surge in orders from Meadow Gold now that Foremost is out of the processing business.

"We gotta figure out how we'll do it. We're gonna be busy as ever," said Bulatao.

Concerns over Meadow Gold's ability to handle the extra load were at the center of the labor negotiations that went down to the wire in the wee hours of yesterday morning.

One sticking point was how the increased work would affect the 150 employees.

The Teamsters and Allied Workers Local 996 union secured a pledge from Meadow Gold that every effort would be made to avoid layoffs or the shifting of employees to unsuitable jobs as the company juggles its processing load, a union source said.

Previous Meadow Gold moves to outsource some of its production have upset employees. For example, the past closure of Meadow Gold's own ice cream factory led to the reassignment of many workers into unwanted positions, though layoffs were avoided.

The two sides say the contract deal will stick if union members ratify it, possibly as early as next week, but both sides admit that the future remains a big question mark.

"There is a huge unknown factor out there now. Meadow Gold has no idea what sort of requests are going to be coming in from customers," said spokeswoman Jackie Smythe. "The two sides have agreed in principle on the contract but they really don't know what's coming yet."

The Department of Education, one of the state's largest milk consumers through its school lunch program, is confident Meadow Gold is up to the task but it will be a "tall order," said spokesman Greg Knudsen.

"Now we're back to the same challenge of making sure Meadow Gold can handle it," he said.

The department is exploring contingency plans that may include serving juice instead of milk to students.

But Knudsen said the department's prime concern is not production capacity, but whether Meadow Gold, which has a fleet of more than 130 trucks, will be able to deliver the milk to the more than 250 public schools spread throughout the state. Previously, Foremost had served about half of those schools.

Ultimately, it may be the smaller retailers who get left behind, worries Robin Takara, manager of the Tamura's grocery store in Wahiawa.

"We're not a big market so the tendency for these guys is take care of the larger accounts first," he said.

Under the Meadow Gold contract deal, the company dropped plans to change the employee medical insurance program. The union opposed the plan, saying it would have limited the choice of medical providers and raised out-of-pocket expenses for workers.

The union said it also won increases to employee wages and pension benefits but would not release details until the deal is presented to members.