Teamsters Local 231 would like to thank all of the members at Bellingham Cold Storage for your patience with the protracted legal process that the Union has been working on with the Lineage Logistics purchase of BCS. On July 25, 2025, the Union received signed acknowledgement that Lineage will accept the Collective Bargaining Agreement(CBA). Because the purchase of BCS was an asset sale, Lineage Logistics was not required to hire the current BCS employees, and they were not required to take over the CBA. Now that the BCS employees have done the onboarding and the Company has agreed to the CBA, we can start discussing the changes that need to be made.

It is the Union’s understanding that Lineage has rolled out a new policy on attendance. Although the policy is different from the previous policy, we do not believe that it violates the CBA. However, we contacted Human Resources and did verify that all BCS employee’s will start with Zero attendance points. This means that past infractions will be void and the attendance policy will go into effect from this point forward.

The other big change that Lineage is working on is the move to weekly pay. It is our understanding that the BCS payroll system of 2 times per month will no longer be available soon and that this change is necessary. The Union is still bargaining the impacts that this  payroll change may have on the membership with Lineage. The Company has provided us with some information that may help mitigate the impact of the change. Here is what we were told:

“bargaining unit members who wish to receive pay on a semimonthly basis do have the option to access their ADP pay card on the 15th of each month as well as the last day of each month.  In order to utilize this option, they must affirmatively elect to receive pay through an ADP pay card which will be mailed to their address of record. This is an election they would have to make in Workday and they would have to manage a physical debit card in order to do so. Alternatively, if bargaining unit members wish to receive pay through direct deposit, they would receive their pay on a weekly basis.”

Lastly, there are several policies that you have reviewed during your onboarding with Lineage. It is the Union’s position (and also outlined in the Policy manual), that the Collective Bargaining Agreement supersedes the Policy when the two documents conflict. What that means is benefits that are listed in the Agreement, like sick leave, holidays, vacation, etc., will remain unchanged during the timeframe in the Agreement.

Please contact the Union hall directly at 360.734.7780 if you have any questions or concerns.