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Workers walked out after rejecting the previous agreement which union leaders had endorsed
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Metro Inc. has reached a tentative deal with the union representing 3,700 workers who walked off the job from more than two dozen stores in the Toronto area a month ago.
If workers ratify the deal, it will end a strike that has shut down 27 stores and for a time blocked Metro’s meat and produce deliveries around the province. Unifor, the union representing the workers, said members will vote on the deal on Aug. 31 at noon at a Toronto convention centre. Until a deal goes through, Metro’s stores will stay closed, spokesperson Marie-Claude Bacon said.
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Metro in a statement on Aug. 30 said the tentative agreement was “fair and equitable for our employees and our customers.”
Roughly 3,700 workers opted to strike on July 29 after rejecting a tentative agreement that union leaders endorsed as the best wage increase the local had negotiated in more than two decades. Negotiators didn’t return to the bargaining table for more than a month until the fight came to a head in court this week.
In a major escalation of the strike, Unifor on Aug. 23. started a round-the-clock blockade of Metro’s two west-end Toronto warehouses that specialize in perishable food.
“Metro needs to come to the table with a serious goddamn offer, because this isn’t ending any time soon,” Unifor national president Lana Payne told a crowd of union members and media at the start of the blockade. “These workers have set a fire to the labour movement.”
In a hearing earlier this week, Metro asked the Ontario Superior Court of Justice to force the union to stand down, arguing that the move was disrupting deliveries to stores across the province and risked spoiling truckloads of meat, seafood and dairy.
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On Aug. 28, Judge William Chalmers ordered Unifor members to stop their full blockade, but still allowed the union to hold up trucks for five minutes at a time.
“An injunction is an extraordinary remedy. The order must go no further than is necessary,” he said in a written decision. “I am satisfied that some delay in access may be appropriate in the circumstances.”
The union initially said it planned to continue blocking trucks within the guidelines laid out by the judge, but within hours of the decision going public announced it would end picketing at the warehouses as a “gesture of good faith” because negotiators were returning to the bargaining table.
Both the union and Metro wouldn’t say what exactly broke the stalemate, or what the new deal brings that the previous one didn’t have. But union leaders have said they wouldn’t present another deal to members unless the company upped its offer on wages.
During the strike, local president Gord Currie repeatedly said he didn’t believe his members would accept anything less than a $2-per-hour pay raise in the first year of a deal. He said workers wanted to replace the “hero pay” bonus of $2 per hour that Metro and its main rivals removed on the same day in June 2020 — a national scandal that pushed Ottawa to strengthen federal laws against wage fixing.
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“They want the $2 back,” Currie said at the outset of the strike.
The previous tentative agreement would have increased hourly wages by $3.75 for full-time and senior part-time workers over four years, with a $1.05 increase upfront and 90 cents in the following three years. Part-time wages would have risen by $2.65 per hour over the course of the deal, with $1.25 upfront. Metro said it was also offering paid sick leave for part-timers and improvements to its pension and benefits package.
Full-time employees at the 27 Metro stores earn $22.60 an hour on average, while part-timers — who make up more than 70 per cent of the workers on strike — get an average of $16.62, according to the union.
Metro wins court order ending union blockade
Unifor blocks Metro’s Ontario warehouses
Striking Metro workers demand ‘fair share’
Unifor said it wouldn’t reveal the terms of its new tentative agreement until the deal is presented to members.
“Our union was able to negotiate this new tentative agreement due to the unwavering commitment of our Metro grocery members who were united in their goal to improve their wages and working conditions,” Payne said in a statement.
Unifor, Canada’s largest private-sector union, also represents employees in the Financial Post’s Toronto newsroom.
• Email: jedmiston@nationalpost.com
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