Negotiations ongoing at The Bay in Victoria

In the opening session of negotiations between The Bay (Victoria) and the Union Negotiating Committee, the employer said that top executives at The Bay want the company to be, “…Canada’s premier retailer and wants to offer customer service like Canadians have never seen before in Canada.”

Unfortunately, they don’t want to pay for it!

The Union Negotiating committee has met with The Bay for six days of negotiations, and at the time Update was being prepared, the employer had still not addressed any union members’ proposals in a meaningful way. In fact, the employer said they are either “not interested”, or there will be “absolutely no change” to the contract as per the union members’ proposals.

The Bay has made it clear they want to offer customer service at the expense of the members. Despite the fact that the staff work hard and in good spirit to promote The Bay, the response from management is limited staff, reduced benefits, no living wage, and no appreciation of the hard work that our members have done to build HBC into the premier retailer it is today.

The demands The Bay has made are an attack on union members and Bay staff, and include:

introduce “Flex Full-Time”, a new classification system that would eliminate part-time employees. This means a reduction of full-time hours to 28 hours per week—a loss of up to 10 hours per week which is a significant wage loss. In addition to this, auxiliary members would have NO benefit package.
The Bay wants to eliminate the current severance and termination pay, and replace it with Employment Standards Act language (this is a massive cutback to the current practice).
The Bay wants to reduce members’ rights to vacation entitlement.

“The Bay has shown a real lack of respect for both the unionized staff and non-union workers,” says UFCW 1518 President Ivan Limpright. “The employer’s demands for rollbacks and cuts to the contract are a bald-faced attempt to take away wages, benefits, and many of the rights members enjoy today.

“All employees deserve a living wage, a good quality of life, improved benefits and a safe workplace. But to be successful in this fight, everyone needs to join the union, support the Union Negotiating Committee, and be ready to stand together to fight for a contract that works for everyone,” he said.