Unifor is still searching for answers a week after Diageo announced plans to close its Amherstburg bottling plant.
The union wants to know where those jobs will be moved to and what that means for the product.
“The decision to shutter Amherstburg and kill more than 200 Canadian jobs was made in a boardroom in England by people who do not understand the history of the brand, with an American spin doctor tasked with addressing valid concerns about the legitimacy of maintaining Crown Royal as a true Canadian whisky,” said Unifor Local 200 President John D’Agnolo. “It’s time for Diageo to come clean on how it plans to bottle Crown Royal past February of next year - beyond vague statements of multiple sites in the U.S. and unspecified plans to mash, blend, age, and distill in Canada.”
To be labelled Canadian whisky, the product must be mashed, aged, and distilled in Canada. The company maintains that all Crown Royal will be blended in Canada for all markets and bottled in Quebec for Canadian and non-U.S. markets.
But frontline workers in Amherstburg believe Diageo could be compromising quality by shipping the unbottled product to the United States.
In January of this year, Diageo announced plans to construct a new facility in Montgomery, Alabama. Unifor is concerned that more Canadian jobs will be lost to this facility.