Neighbouring businesses feel effects of Co-op strike
University Heights shops are feeling the pinch since pickets began a week ago
Melanie Winnichyn smiles as a customer enters her dry cleaning shop to drop off an armful of clothes. That’s been happening less frequently than usual over the past seven days, she says.
Outside, two private security guards stand in the parking lot, keeping watch as small knots of pickets wearing parkas, snow pants and vests emblazoned with “On Strike” pace the frozen sidewalk.
“When people come in here, they want to drop off and run,” said Winnichyn, whose Accomplished Cleaners shop shares a parking lot with the Saskatoon Co-op grocery store and gas station in University Heights.
“They have busy lives, and right now it’s an inconvenience. If that happens, it slows down the industry … If they’re inconvenienced, they ’ll pass that off to another time and maybe pass you all along,” she added.
Winnichyn is one of several business owners who say their customers have been annoyed and their bottom lines affected by the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1400 strike, which began a week ago.
The situation is similar across the parking lot at Supplement World Canada.
Owner Josh Macgowan said “traffic is down a lot” this week, and customers are reporting “more and more concerning things.”
Macgowan said while he is not taking sides in the labour dispute and wants everyone involved to be respectful, pickets should be aware and avoid preventing customers from getting to his business.
“I think that if the picketers know that they’re affecting other businesses that have nothing to do with their union or their strike, I would just hope that they would think about the impact that they might be having on somebody’s livelihood,” he said.
UFCW Local 1400 president Norm Neault said the union is aware of the businesses’ concerns and trying to be cognizant of them, but cannot simply picket the Coop stores because they are barred from trespassing on the property.
Saskatoon Co-op owns the lot and the buildings; it leases space to tenants.
According to Saskatoon Co-op CEO Grant Wicks, the co-operative has met with tenants but pickets will “absolutely not” be allowed on the property to “harass” customers entering and leaving its Co-op-branded stores.
It’s unclear how many customers choose not to cross picket lines, or how many have been turned away by pickets impeding entrances — a common strike tactic.
The co-operative’s employees went on strike last Thursday — their first job action in 35 years — after 65 per cent of them voted to reject management’s final offer, which capped potential maximum earnings for new hires.
While Saskatoon Co-op insists the second wage grid is necessary to keep it afloat over the long term, the union maintains it should not hurt future employees when the business — which earned $12.1 million last year — is profitable.
The strike has grown increasingly divisive this week.
Saskatoon Co-op reported graffiti at its headquarters and nails scattered in the parking lot. The union has denied involvement.
While Saskatoon Co-op and UFCW Local 1400 representatives aren’t scheduled to resume negotiations until Nov. 29, the union on Wednesday reached an agreement with Moose Jaw Co-op, whose employees have been on strike for 36 days.
That strike also hinged on wages, and the settlement preserves a twotier wage structure similar to the one at the centre of the dispute in Saskatoon. The two-tier wage was in the Moose Jaw Co-op employees’ previous collective agreement.