Picketing in Metro strike extends to pair of distribution centers

With the Toronto-area strike against Metro Inc. nearing four weeks, the picketing has now expanded beyond stores.

National union Unifor on Wednesday said frontline grocery workers represented by Unifor Local 414 began a “secondary picket” at two Metro distribution centers in Toronto. About 3,700 Metro associates at 27 stores had walked off the job on July 29 after rejecting a tentative contract agreement reached on July 19. Montreal-based Metro said the supermarkets, located in 13 greater Toronto communities, would be shut for the duration of the strike.

Gord Currie, president of Unifor Local 414, held a press conference outside Metro’s warehouse at 5559 Dundas St. West in Toronto on Wednesday morning to kick off the latest picketing.

“Hundreds of Metro workers and supporters have set up round-the-clock secondary picket lines outside of Metro’s distribution warehouses,” Unifor stated in a Wednesday post on X (formerly known as Twitter). “Frontline grocery workers are demanding that Metro return to the bargaining table with a serious wage offer.”

In a repost on the secondary picket, Unifor National President Lana Payne commented, “Solidarity with Unifor 414 members on strike at 27 Metro stores. They are fighting for decent work and pay. Secondary picketing has been increasing all week. Remember friends: When we fight, we win.”

Related:Metro gives strike update in reporting strong Q3 results

Metro decried the distribution center picketing in comments to Winsight Grocery Business, noting that the action was blocking fresh food deliveries.

“The union is picketing the Toronto distribution centers that are supplying all of its Metro and Food Basics stores in the province, they are currently preventing all deliveries of fresh products to our stores which is unacceptable. The distribution centers and the impacted stores are not on strike and their operations, which are critical, should not be interfered with,” Marie-Claude Bacon, vice president of public affairs and communications at Metro, said in an email on Wednesday.
 
“No solution has ever emerged from such pressure tactics. Rather than picketing sites that are not on strike, the union should come back to the bargaining table, which Metro has been requesting since August 12,” she stated. “Metro will not be able to present an offer and resolve the labor conflict if the union refuses to bargain.”

Gord Currie, president of Unifor Local 414, and Lana Payne, Unifor National president, said the union is waiting for a stronger contract offer from Metro. / Photo courtesy of Unifor/Lana Payne

Related:Strike is on at Metro stores after union rejects tentative accord

Metro said on Aug. 15 that it reached out to Unifor to set up a meeting between their bargaining committees and, two days later, asked the Ontario Ministry of Labor to appoint a conciliation officer to help the company and the union negotiate a contract agreement to resolve the strike. However, the union declined the meeting and the participation of a conciliation officer.

Unifor noted at the time that it awaits an “acceptable offer” from Metro as members are struggling to afford food and rent.

“Front-line grocery workers have been clear about their expectations, and what the company presented is inadequate,” Local 414’s Currie said in a statement in an Aug. 15 Facebook post. “This dispute is about wages—members have spoken loudly that they’ve watched their wages slowly erode over time, while this company turns out record profits, and they are demanding a fairer deal.”

The tentative contract offered in July provided “significant increases” in wages for employees in all four years of the agreement, according to Metro. That included $3.75 more by July 2026 for full-time and senior part-time employees, as well as $2.65 more by the same date for other part-time employees. Metro said the deal—in which no concessions were asked of employees—also included a 40-hour work week for full-time staff, up from 37 hours, which provided employees with more flexibility and a wage increase of 8%; a weekend off every three weeks (instead of every four weeks) for full-timers; a significant improvement in benefits plus a pension increase; and the launch of a paid sick-day program for part-timers.

Related:Loss of ‘hero pay’ resurfaces in Metro contract talks

Part-time workers, too, have been given more opportunities to take full-time positions, Metro added. The company said that, over the last two years, it has opened up a range of full-time jobs and hasn’t been able to fill them all from its part-time ranks, and many of those slots remain available to part-time associates.

“It’s the joint responsibility of Metro and the union to keep trying to negotiate an outcome at the bargaining table, particularly in a context where the parties had reached a very good agreement which both parties recognized as such and that was unanimously recommended by union representatives to the employees,” Metro said in an Aug. 17 statement.

At Unifor’s Canadian Council summit on Saturday, Local 414’s Currie reiterated that Metro’s phaseout of $2-per-hour bonus pay enacted during the pandemic sparked the current labor impasse.

“Some would call it hero pay, and I said, ‘That’s when I’m going to have a problem…when [the company] takes it back,’” he said at the event. “We’re going to keep fighting, and we’re going to win.”

In reporting Metro’s third-quarter results on Aug. 9, President and CEO Eric La Flèche said negotiations would continue. “We are clearly disappointed, given that we had worked constructively with the union and the employees bargaining committee to reach a very good agreement, providing significant pay increases that they unanimously recommended to the employees,” he told analysts in a conference call. (Call transcript provided by AlphaSense.) “We remain committed to the bargaining process and look forward to a resolution and the reopening of our stores, as soon as possible, while ensuring the long-term competitiveness of our company.”