Four UFCW locals take on Loblaws in Ontario…will seek a strike mandate!

UFCW Locals 1000A,1977,175 and 633 representing 30,000 Loblaws employees across Ontario are taking on the country’s biggest food retail chain after Ministry of Labour conciliation in an attempt to get a new collective agreement failed.

The Union says that the biggest block in getting a settlement is Loblaws demand for substantial wage and benefit cuts from the existing collective agreements. All four Local Unions have emphatically rejected the employer’s demands as unreasonable and unnecessary. They say that with Loblaws sales, profits and share prices constantly rising there is no economic case for any wage or benefit reductions.

The secondary issue in the dispute is what the four Locals call, “chronic and deliberate understaffing” of stores. Membership morale is at an all-time low because hours have been cut resulting in their inability to provide customers with service and keep stores clean.

“Naturally we are offering full support to the Ontario locals” says Local 1518 President Ivan Limpright. “With two disputes dragging on for months against Loblaws  Extra Food stores here we know full well how completely unreasonable and ruthless Loblaws can be”, he says. “The only way to ensure fair collective agreements from this company is for all the UFCW Locals across the country to stick together and support one another”.