As Metro workers at 27 Toronto-area grocery stores return to work after a month-long strike, experts and union representatives say their new collective agreement raises the bar for grocery store workers across the country.
“It's the workers' time to be recognized for what they've given to these companies,” said Kim Novak, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers union Local 1518 in British Columbia.
The union said it has 13 contracts with grocers, mainly in Ontario, that are set to expire before the end of 2024, covering a total of more than 6,000 workers. Another two are currently being negotiated and one recently expired. One was with Save-On-Foods, covering stores across the province under the chain owned by Jim Pattison Group. Aggressive negotiations resulted in a deal with the highest wage increases those workers had seen in 25 years, said Novak.
Working at a grocery store once offered a decent job with good pay, but that’s changed, said York University associate professor of labour geography Steven Tufts. Unions took concessions at the bargaining table over the 1990s and 2000s as grocers tried to compete with Walmart. Unions need to scale up bargaining, he said, so that they can negotiate with employers at a higher level — like the UFCW’s B.C.-wide contracts with Save-On-Foods and Safeway.
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