Real Canadian Superstore staff in Alberta vote 97 per cent in favour of strike action
Thousands of Real Canadian Superstore employees in Alberta could go on strike after an overwhelming vote in support of job action.
Ninety-seven per cent of voting members of the union voted to strike last week. About 10,000 union members work at Superstores in the province, said United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 401 spokesperson Scott Payne.
Local president Thomas Hesse said the vote “reflects anger and frustration” felt by workers.
“They can’t work from home. Out of 40 Superstores in Alberta, over 30 have had (COVID-19) outbreaks,” Hesse said. “They’ve been at the front lines ensuring we can cook and eat at our kitchen tables with our families.”
The latest round of bargaining started Monday and is expected to last until Friday, he said. Negotiations between the two sides have been ongoing for more than one year.
The strike vote came after the union was unsatisfied with Loblaw’s latest offer to employees. The union has 72 hours to serve strike notice if one occurs, Payne said.
Hesse declined to provide details on what the employer had previously offered, saying conditions created by the COVID-19 pandemic call for an unprecedented analysis of what employees are seeking.
“I talked to a cashier the other day. She said, ‘I work in a makeshift plexiglass terrarium. I’m scared. There’s (minimal) enforcement of rules, there’s no mandatory vaccination of customers and hundreds of people are pouring through the workplace daily.’
“I’m seeing people terrified going to work in crowded public places,” Hesse said. “Their billionaire bosses gave them so-called hero pay and then took that away. It’s almost like the employer saw it as a calculation error in their enormous profits.”
Loblaw rolled out $2-per-hour pay raises to encourage workers in the early months of the pandemic. It phased it out in June 2020, “clawed back far sooner than the (COVID-19) risks dissipated,” said Payne.
But wage and benefit issues are on the table in negotiations, and the union is seeking “very significant” improvements, Hesse said.
“(There’s) one word to describe what the employees are looking for: lots. What will the tipping point be when workers will say, ‘this makes me feel OK to go into this environment?’ We’re bargaining this week to probe that question. What is an essential worker worth in this environment?”
Loblaw spokesperson Catherine Thomas said the company had no comment on the issue while bargaining is ongoing.
Joseph Marchand, a labour economist and an economics professor at the University of Alberta, said there’s always room for an employer to go above and beyond COVID-19 safety measures in the workplace.
“I understand that the workers would want the same requirements that are in the non-essential businesses,” Marchand said. “But it also goes the other way. I’ve seen at least one of these video snippets where people are very angry at this new policy. There’s been backlash on employees who are just following the rules. If these incidents happened to employees, they would also feel unsafe due to possible violence.”
In terms of demands for better wages, Marchand noted that many government policies aimed at improving conditions for workers, such as the Canada Recovery Benefit (CRB) have distorted labour markets and created upward pressure on wages.
The CRB ends on Oct. 23.
“I question whether there’ll be that upward pressure as that policy response goes away,” he said. “I wonder where that leaves wages afterwards. The upward pressure on wages could start to go away, but who knows what COVID will deliver us?”
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