Who Profitted Most from No CGC Chnages?

[parsley]

1. I read about a lot of moaning on this site.

2.If you want more money in your pocket, try the following:


A. Post your online handle and pick your destination.That way the rest know where you are headed.

B. Plan your holiday in June after seeding...a getaway that you can claim as tax deductable.

C.Choose your destination:
Regina
Saskatoon
Thunder Bay
Cascadia
Moose Jaw
Edmonton
Other

D. Go and visit one of the workplaces visited below where union worksers are employed. Many of them will be involved in grading grain. There are 1500 grain union employees, according to this website: http://www.gsu.ca/about_gsu.htm

E. Meet with them when you land in the office/workplace. Explain that you are putting together proposal to terminate 1/2 of them by 01/01/10 and you are seeing what they do, and how the job can be eliminated or dispensed with.

F. Talk to and contact the other farmers who are visiting other sites.

G. Compile a Book of Solutions.

ie,
.... revised legislation (The West is paying for grain grading that the East has never even heard of and think we are so bloody stupid they are too aghast to believe it),

....offloading costs on government(if the government of Canda wants branding, tell them to pay for the stickers to brand their own asses, yes, gasp, I said asses),

..... new programs(forget about union grading, and union testing,make private available,)etc.

H. If Union workers hassle you for asking questions or demand you to leave, take their names and get their pics on digitals, and we'll post them on PN.Remmeber, Farmers are eventually pAYING the bills. It's your money.

I. Wonder why a Union man went to Ottawa and talked down the CGC bill last week? Well, he was sticking up for his union men,and he wanted to make sure they kept their jobs It's about money, boys.

J. I took a bit from Viterra's PDF
so you'd see
........... xxpeople@jobs

so you'd see the numbers employed Your grain? You pay to have it....? Do you even know what the hell they do? I bet not.


http://www.viterra.ca/static/agm/AIFjan1608FINAL.pdfHuman Resources


As of Oct 31, 2007, there were 3,097 persons employed by Viterra and its wholly owned subsidiaries. Of this total, 1,167 were unionized employees who are represented by four unions and whose employment is governed by eleven collective agreements. Of the eleven, four are currently in bargaining, see details below. These agreements are normally negotiated for varying terms and in any given year a number of these agreements expire and are re-negotiated.
COLLECTIVE BARGAINING AGREEMENTS – at October 31, 2007
Union Agreement/ Location Term of Agreement # of Employees

Grain Services Union Country Services (Operations & Maintenance) - Sask.
Feb 1/06-Jan 31/08 Currently in bargaining 598@jobs

Grain Services Union Offices Feb 1/06-Jan 31/08 Currently in bargaining 159@jobs

United Steel Workers of America
Union Lodge 650@jobs
Thunder Bay Terminal Feb 1/06-Jan 31/09 52@jobs

Grain Workers Union Cascadia Jan 1/06-Dec 31/10 105@jobs

Grain Workers Union Pacific Elevators Ltd. Jan 1/06-Dec 31/10 51%jobs

Grain Services Union AgPro – Saskatoon Jan 1/06-Dec 31/09 29@jobs

Grain Services Union AgPro - Moose Jaw Apr 1/06-Sept 30/09 28@jobs

United Food & Commercial
Workers Union
AgPro – Coulter July 1/07-Jun 30/08 3@jobs

Grain Services Union AgPro - Man/Alta Oct 1/04-Sept 30/07
Currently in bargaining 106@ jobs

United Food & Commercial
Workers Union
Can-Oat –Saskatoon Sept 5/07-Sept 30/09
29 @jobs

United Food & Commercial
Workers Union
Oat Plant - Edmonton March 31, 2007
Currently in bargaining
7@jobs

K FINALLY...last rant... here's a message from Pars. Get off your sorry asses, and mind your business. Be smart about it. Do your homework. You shouldn't be paying for scuzz. Scuzz is work you pay for that not show monetary benefit for YOU. Yet you pay.

Your farm organizations cannot fight against 1500 union workers fervently lobbying in Ottawa. Have you even bought a membership to the Wheat Growers or the Barley growers?

The CWB are integrated with the likes of

http://www.tcrc295.com/July_31_2008.htm


Most of them seem more interested in your money than you do.

If you want to do some finanical renovations. start a thread and roll up your sleeves.

Pars

[wilagro]

I have worked in union and non-union shops. Believe me, the non-union shops control your life. You are a serf to be cheated, controlled, enslaved and used.

Some unions can be faulted for their over-zealousness at times BUT they know how non-union businesses operate and the tricks that they pull.

I cannot give a blanket condemnation of unions nor should any thinking person do so.

[parsley]

The grain grading crap hours should be cut in half. Employees want more more pay and less hours and longer holidays. Farmers can't afford any more warbles. Simple arithmetic. Can we agree on that? Pars

[parsley]

Well, wilagro, I see you union men arent't afraid to stand up and defend yourselves! Good for you. That's why union men make more then farmers do. Just ask GM workers!

I like the term, "over-zealousness" and I want to adopt it for farmers to use.

So snappy and SASK and classical liberal, why don't you contact each other, and make an appointment with Vittera. Ask them to endorse your presence to sit in on their negotiations with the Unions and, each of you will speak as
"independents"

You will act "over zealous" in negotiating, which is another term for telling the unions that farmers want to eliminate EXPENSES. And overstaffing is an expense. Fire 1/2 of them would be your recommnedation in public press releases and media interviews. You'll know what job they do and how much they get paID, AND what service is provided to the farmer.

After all, most of CWB grain is handled by accreditied agents, with a lot of it going through Viterra. Every expense they absorb is less money for farmers and for them.

Wilagro, I'm advocating eliminating excess numbers of workers, not unions, so don't try and twist the argument because you have no other defense.!

Your idea to eliminate compulsory unions altogether is a good one, albeit doesn't suit my purpose in this thread: "I cannot give a blanket condemnation of unions nor should any thinking person do so."

I think I have this one thought out. It's about money. Farmers don't get enuff. Unions are slurping up too much. Get it? LOL


You can unionize your wife and children, and the mother in law, lol, for all I care. Just don't send the bill to me, cowboy. Pars

[wmoebis]

Pars.

Why do you call grain grading crap? Do you not think that grain quality control is important?

How would you profess to cut the Hrs. in half and maintain our standards?

[wilagro]

Yeh, Parsley, answer wmoebis's question.

[parsley]

I will have an answer for you on Parsley's Notebook at 3:00 Central time.

I'm ticked. Pars

[parsley]

<p></p><p class="EC_style8ptBK"><strong>[URL="http://parsleysnotebook.blogspot.com/2009/04/cgcs-defeated-need-for-change-for.html"](Grain Grading is Crap in[/URL])</a></strong></p>

[parsley]

Just this ONE room, this one Night,if your read the Terminal trip report on Parsley's Notebook, I would fire two or three grain graders in the Vancouver Terminal, and leave ONE or TWO, depending upon who they worked for. One was a CGC.

Then I would look for a duty-sharing grain grader, and the most left would be 1.5 graders


That was my original intent, BUT after a second sober thought, I want to trash both/the 1.5, and contract soley with my buyer and let him grade it to his private specs, and make me an offer.

Yes, I would, wmoebis.

Pars

[parsley]

Hey are 'you two' eating twinkies with Vader under his bed?

LOL

Pars

[parsley]

wmoebis asked me the question:

"Why do you call grain grading crap? Do you not think that grain quality control is important? How would you profess to cut the Hrs. in half and maintain our standards?"

Grain grading.

Where does one begin, answering a question like this? Farmers have been told so often that we pay for a superior service, that who am I, a dorky twit from small town rural Saskatchewan, to have the gall to give Canada' s grain graders and their systems, a calling down?

But I do know this.

Without "farm-grain direct to buyer" sales, with the buyer's specs impeccably serviced, organic deals would never had happened. Never. A baker wanting a specific falling number. So I guess I do understand the basic importance of a miller wanting good bread making wheat as opposed to a rust resistant wheat. I've learned a bit about selling and a lot about eating, so I consider I'm qualified to give my farmer's opinion.

This past week, I watched a wrench from the Public Service Alliance torquing away at the MP's in Ottawa, lobbying for more of the same CGC status quo. And got it.

The failure to bring about meaningful grain grading changes in the interest of farmers, infuriates me. The idea that Canada has the perfect grading scheme is noxious. And the lack of knowing what happens in the real world is akin to farmers putting a wisdom tooth under your pillow, hoping for a buck or two.

Farmer Joe recently refreshed my memory of his experience while visiting a grain terminal out at the West coast at Vancouver, quite some years ago, where his eyes were opened, wider than he would have liked, to what grain grading at the terminals shouldn't be, but is. But perhaps from his observations, we can begin down the path to 'what must come'.

A good old boy, basically retired, gave Farmer Joe a tour of the terminal. As one of the terminal's graveyard shift employees, his job was to ward off the folks wanting to fish, so he had time to take the Farmer Joe on a tour of the terminal's "cleaning floor " where the grain was cleaned, and there was no dust at all, and the grain being cleaned, that farmers were, and still are paying for, was as whistley-clean as could be, why, even Aunt Sally would be proud.

#3 Hard Red wheat heading for Mexico was being cleaned at the terminal that night and loaded directly into the ship a-waiting as it made it's way through cleaning, and then distributed into the ship, When they followed along the distributor, of course, Farmer Joe had these itchy fingers he couldn't control, after all, seed growers have those experienced hands and eyes , so he couldn't resist watching for an opportunity to snatch a few handfuls as the flow of wheat found it's way through the terminal-monstrosity to the hull of the ship.

In the grading room, four or five of the grain graders, whose salaries are paid by farmers, sat around drinking coffee, kicking out a sample of the grain headed for the boat every so often, grading it, four plates with samples. Joe's fingers stirred.

Farmer Joe got to looking at the samples, carefully, his eyes identifying all the kinds of 'stuff' in the sample, including rye, and durum and mustard and buckwheat, well, you name it, it was there; but, at the same time his head kept telling him he couldn't be seeing all this crap, because the grain was cleaned. Farmer Joe said to the graders, "This grain would be sample back home. Look at all this shit in it." One of the graders replied, "I'll tell the boys to cut it back a bit."

Huh?

Now here's the real story from that farmer's eyes.

The Mexican buyers had definite specs for the CWB grain they were buying.

So, first, the grain was cleaned to the best possible end product, farmers paying, screenings separated. (Do you suppose some of the grain could be # 1 and #2, not 3)? Then percentages of screenings were being re-added to the grain flowing into the ship, so that Mexico's particular #3 spec's for the wheat invoice would be satisfied. Grading down.

Meantime, all screenings were headed for separate storage, to be sold by the company who had bought the grain as the accredited CWB agent. Screenings are any company's goldmine. If you buy top quality clean wheat and blend it down with "free" screenings, you not only get paid grain price for the portion of the screenings that you blend in, but you also have a hunk of top grain you substituted the screenings for, that you can sell at an od (overdosed) price

Farmer Joe told me, "Farmers don't have a hot clue of what they're paying for or what they're getting for their money."

The companies do know. And that is why Wheat Board grains are their most lucrative crops to sell, their handling agreements their best banking asset, and farmers' stupidity and grain their most reliable resources. And the CWB's monopoly enables them.

Some countries actually want and order screenings in their grain. For chicken feed. Many countries want to do their own grain cleaning; they do not want, order, or purchase top quality cleaned grain. In fact, for a lot of countries' orders, the grain is mixed dirtier leaving the terminal than when it first enters the terminal.

And yet, we clean all of it. And why? Who speaks for farmers' money being spent, with no value to farmers? Have you heard this being on the CWB's agenda at farmer meetings? If not, why not? Who gains from the status quo?


*Farmers' grain is shipped to the terminal where it is cleaned impeccably and the farmer is charged for the cleaning. Salaries.
* The farmer is charged for weighing. Someone gets a salary for weighing while someone else gets a commission for selling new scales.
*The grain is graded by the grain commission. The farmers pay for all grading.
*The farmers pay for elevation.


Pay. pay. Pay.


Where is the organization that is supposed to be the farmers' wheat and barley marketing arm? Does the CWB close a blind eye? I'll remind you once again of deer poop in the ship's hulls, Did the CGC apologize? Did the CWB apologize, or send a bill to the CGC, or to the Accredited agency? Or did the farmer pay for the recleaning? For the lost sale? For the press releases? Are we so blind, that we do not understand that if farmers do not look after our own bottom line, NO ONE , and I mean no one else is going to do it for us?

Did you know, at least this is what I am told, that barley does not get cleaned at terminal, and yet farmers are charged for cleaning it? Get out and look at how your money is being squandered into other pockets.

It was NO ACCIDENT that the CGC bill was squashed! Any change will be met with resistance, because it is about jobs. And about companies reaping profits. And about the CWB maintaining the status quo. Every player fits into the clustered cozy little nest. And don't bloody well forget it.

What should farmers do"?

1. Educate yourself. Treat grading expenses as if it is your wife maxing out a dozen credit cards. First of all, find out which cards she has.

2. Know what you want changed. You WANT to pay for cleaning and then dirtying the grain? Scheesch!


3. Make sure when the truck ramps at the elevator, and the deal is struck, that the company legally owns your grain, not you. You shouldn't be the risk taker from then on.


4 Transform the system so that farmers trade grain according to sample. Organics do it successfully. Write out your specs and sell your grain based on the specs. A simple private grain test company will and can do the job. We need rudiments of the following :

1. protein
2, moisture
3.test weight
4. foreign Material
6.falling # at times
7. quick visual

Grain quality begins on the farm. The deal must be made according to the quality of the sample. Grower to buyer. Period.

By the way, when Farmer Joe went outside and viewed the ship from the Vancouver shoreline, there was so much dust being loaded, he could hardly see the ship. Yes, that's right, the dust, you paid to have cleaned out. That's crap, wmoebis, present grain grading is crap. Pars

[bduke]

Parsley......You are in good form this morning, and your story is absolutely true....and has been the situation for many, many years.

The Grain Companies would lose money in the Prairies to gain a greater share of terminal handling....because that is where the money is easily made. BTW terminal allocation was pro-rated to sourcing for unloading and handling efficiencies.

Well stated.....and your disgust should be shared by all grain farmers....Bill

[parsley]

If cheap screenings land in your lap, and if you bypass CWB pooling and marketing, and if farmer-feed grain is held captive in Canada, it's just as much fun as <strong>[URL="http://parsleysnotebook.blogspot.com/2008/12/mooney-lining-up-viterras-port-and.html"](shooting ducks in a barrel.)[/URL]</strong>

[parsley]

Sometimes, Bill, it seems people have to be hit with a two X four. Parents don't want to see or hear any of their children's shenanigans or faults.

It seems Single-deskers like wilagro will give away the farm to protect the CWB. It doesn't matter what you prove, or what you reveal, the last of the stalwarts don't want the wall to come down.

As farmers, be prepared to make some damn hard decisions, or you won't last. You can't last because you are caught in a $$squeeze and a fert/chem addiction. Your grain is captive in Canada. Ontario's is not.

And for all your bravado, many Western farmers are one operating loan away from walking away.

But the bottom line is this...there is one dispensible warble. Get rid of the bloody thing. It's eating you alive. Pars.

[checking]

Wilagro and Wmoebis remember your farmer Joe story from thirty plus years ago, only then it was farmer Bob, and it had a grain inspector punch line. It was all about quality control to meet the specs on the amount of crap that could be added to wheat, so that buyers within countries would beat a path to our terminals instead of the U.S. terminals. The ship load, no matter where it was sampled, was uniform in dockage at unload to the multiple of buyers that might be splitting the cargo. All customers were happy as no one was cheated in their truck loads. The U.S. way, as told by our union inspectors, was for them to clean the wheat, put it in the ship's hold, and then look at the customer's specs. If it was short on dockage, then a compartment, or end of the hold was filled with screenings. At unload some poor smuck received the screening pill in their truck. Naturally, that purchaser went to the CWB the next time he wanted wheat, and didn't want a load of crap. (lol)