TORONTO – Top executives at Canada’s grocery giants have been paid millions in bonuses while continuing to deny pandemic pay to frontline essential grocery workers.
“These same executives took away $2 an hour pandemic pay from their workers after only a few weeks of the first wave back in June 2020,” said Unifor National President Jerry Dias. “The CEO’s and top execs continue to reap the rewards of COVID-19 boosted sales while their workers face the risks to keep food on the table for Canadians.”
TORONTO– As the holiday shopping season ramps up on Black Friday, Unifor has launched the ‘Warehouse Workers Unite’ campaign to improve working conditions for workers in warehousing, distribution and logistics facilities across the country.
“Frontline essential warehouse workers literally carry the load to ensure that we have access to the goods that we need but they also bear the brunt as pressure for faster and faster delivery results in ever-worsening conditions, with increased demands to work at almost impossible speeds,” said Unifor National President Jerry Dias.
Ontario Food Basics workers voted 88% in favour to ratify a new collective agreement that protects and grows full-time jobs, secures wage and benefit increases and extends the health benefit plan for part-time workers.
TORONTO–Unifor Local 414 and Food Basics have reached a tentative collective agreement, covering approximately 1,400 workers at 20 southern Ontario Food Basics stores.
“The pandemic proved how much we rely on these essential workers,” said Jerry Dias, Unifor National President. “This contract delivers concrete gains to build on as Unifor continues its work to improve standards and provide the respect that grocery workers deserve.”
TORONTO —Food Basics workers at grocery stores across Ontario are warning customers of a pre-Thanksgiving September 29 strike deadline.
“More than 85% of our Food Basics members are in part-time positions, making barely above the minimum wage with no paid sick days,” said Gord Currie, President of Unifor Local 414. “Despite the fact that these workers remained on the frontline throughout the pandemic, now Food Basics wants to eliminate the highest paid full-time jobs in these stores and offer the rest substandard wages.”
The 1400-worker strike in Newfoundland at Dominion grocery stores owned by Loblaw Companies Limited, now in its eleventh week, will go down in history as the first major Canadian labour dispute of the COVID-19 pandemic.
On one level, it is a dispute about fundamental workplace standards, wages and job security. Dig deeper and you quickly realize this dispute is about fairness, decency and respect in Canada’s low-wage retail sector.
