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XL Beef employees could be back to work this fall, it all depends on what happens Sunday.  Members of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 1400, met Monday night to go over their options after XL beef employees received a lockout notice last Friday.  The 200 employees were laid off in the spring due to a shortage of slaughter cattle.  The company says they were locked out because the union took to long to respond to a contract offer.

Union President Norm Neault, "We expected them to be recalled fully and back to work on the 28th and then the offer would have either been voted on, fine, and if accept, fine, and if not accepted then we would have continued negotiations.  Their strategy is they decided to issue lock out notices and it's a bit bazaar, never been through that type of experience before while on lay off."

Neault adds that they have been negotiating of a while, "We've been negotiating throughout the lay off and the company had put out an offer sometime in the summertime to us that they believed was a final offer and we had said that we would bring that to the members once they were back to work and we have a representative body and we knew who was coming back to work."

The company wanted to have a contract in place before employees went back to work.  A vote is set for Sunday.