It was the third day of walkouts against Danish Crown slaughterhouses across the country. Wednesday's walkout affected 15 of the cooperative group's slaughterhouses and brought to 4,000 the number of workers who are striking.

Over the weekend, 250 employees at a Danish Crown slaughterhouse in Ringsted, 65 kilometers (40 miles) southwest of Copenhagen, accepted a deal to lower their salaries to keep their jobs.

However, they rejected the deal Wednesday in a new vote organized by the Danish Food and Allied Workers Union, or NNF, that had negotiated the deal. The NNF shop steward at the slaughterhouse in Ringsted also resigned Wednesday, saying he no longer could defend the deal, the local DR radio channel said.

On Monday, some 1,800 workers walked off their jobs to protest the deal. Their numbers increased to 3,000 on Tuesday, chiefly affecting slaughterhouses on Denmark's western Jutland peninsula.

Gudrun Andreasen, a Danish Crown spokeswoman, said the strike meant that up to 100,000 pigs could not be slaughtered.

With 27 pig slaughterhouses and cutting plants across the country, the Danish Crown Group accounts for 90 percent of Danish pork production.

NNF counts some 40,000 members, all of whom work in the meat processing, baking, dairy, confectionary and tobacco businesses.

Source: Associated Press via Forbes - 16th December 2004