Greeley packinghouse workers today overwhelmingly approved a new five-year contract with Swift and Company.
Ninety percent of the workers voted for the deal at a ratification meeting in Greeley.
Twenty-two hundred workers are covered under the new agreement. About 1,000 voted. The old contort expired at midnight Saturday night.
Greeley Swift workers are represented by United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7 of Wheat Ridge.
Any time workers approve a contract by a 9-to-1 margin, you know it's a good deal," said UFCW President Ernest L. Duran Jr.
In marathon negotiations that lasted until 3 a.m. Saturday, workers on the bargaining team managed to get raises totaling $1.50 an hour over the five year deal.
The contract raises the base rate for packinghouse workers to $11.25 an hour, fifty cents per hour the first year and 25 cents per hour the remaining four years.
"Greeley Swift workers now have the best packinghouse contract in the country," said Fernando Rodriguez, who led the worker negotiating team.
Worker negotiating teams also settled controversial wellness and sick day issues.
The new agreement with Swift also allows prevents the company from increasing the chain speed, speed at which the production line runs, without approval of workers. Chain speed has been a tough safety issue for plant workers.
The Swift plant processes about 4,000 cattle a day.
Health care benefits remain about the same, but workers will have to pay larger co-payments. Premiums will go up as well.