No talks slated as strike nears third month

Saskatoon Co-op employees are likely to mark three months on the picket line next week, with little indication their union and the co-operative’s management have made significant progress toward a settlement.

No bargaining dates are scheduled, and while United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1400 has asked for additional meetings, Saskatoon Co-op’s CEO said the union’s latest proposal is “a step backward.”

“If they’re not going to propose anything new and better than their previous proposal, well, then there’s no point in us sitting down,” Grant Wicks said Monday.

“We felt that this was not even really worth our time,” he added. He declined to discuss specifics of the latest attempt to resolve a labour action that began over a proposed two-tier wage system.

UFCW Local 1400 secretary-treasurer Lucy Flack Figueiredo said union officials are committed to finding a resolution and want to meet with co-op management “sometime this week”

“It’s not been a secret that we’ve already offered a version of a second tier that is formatted based on the employer’s proposed offer to us. There’s been movement on our side,” Flack Figueiredo said.

Around 900 UFCW Local 1400 members, who have been without a contract for more than two years, went on strike on Nov. 1 after voting down the co-operative’s final offer by a margin of about 65 per cent.

The dispute hinges on a proposed lower wage tier for new hires, which Saskatoon Co-op says is necessary to ensure long-term sustainability; the union contends the proposal is unfair to its future members.