Eaton Centre Uniqlo workers vote Tuesday on unionizing
Employees consider joining union in attempt to improve working conditions at retailer
Employees at the Uniqlo store at Toronto Eaton Centre have decided to hold a vote on whether to join a union to improve conditions at the Japanese apparel retailer’s first Canadian location.
Staff at the store are being scheduled for 9.5-hour workdays that include 90 minutes of unpaid breaks and they are often asked to work overtime on top of that, said Chicheng Wat, 35, who works on the sales floor and in the management office.
“People say: ‘It’s just retail, what do you expect,’ but we work hard, we deserve to be treated fairly,” Wat said.
Other employees have said that during peak periods, they are expected to work 12-hour days, said Tanya Ferguson, organizing co-ordinator for Workers United Canada Council.
“I think fundamentally what it comes down to is there just seems to be a lack of respect,” Ferguson said. The 169 non-management Eaton Centre store employees are scheduled to vote Tuesday on whether to join Workers United Canada, after more than 40 per cent of them signed union cards — the first step in the process toward union certification.
If 50 per cent plus one of the votes are in favour of a union, they can begin negotiating a contract with management.
Uniqlo, a division of Japan’s Fast Retailing Co. Ltd., opened two stores in the GTA last year, the first at the Eaton Centre, the second at Yorkdale. It sells casualwear for men, women and children. It is planning to open a third Canadian store in Burnaby, B.C.
Uniqlo has 837 stores in Japan, accounting for 6.5 per cent of the Japanese apparel market and it is now pursuing growth via global markets in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea and the United Kingdom, where it began opening stores in 2001.
It has 51 stores in the U.S.
Uniqlo Canada said it could not make the deadline to comment for this story.
Workers first reached out to the union in July, after hearing of its success in organizing personal trainers at GoodLife Fitness.
“They felt the best way to improve the workplace and stem high turnover was to unionize,” said Ryan Hayes, from the communications and research department at Workers United Canada Council.
“To our knowledge, this is the first unionization drive at a Uniqlo anywhere in the world.”
The union has its roots in the garment trade and represents 10,000 workers in Canada, for a total of 100,000 people in North America.