Tensions rise between big grocers and staff amid strike at Dominion
The biggest supermarket chains in Canada are facing mounting pressure over their decisions to cancel pay bonuses for their front-line workers during the pandemic, with labour unions warning of heightened tensions at bargaining tables and one member of Parliament issuing fresh calls for the Competition Bureau to start an investigation.
Roughly 1,400 employees are on strike from 11 Dominion grocery stores in Newfoundland and Labrador after they rejected a proposed agreement from Dominion’s parent company, Loblaw Cos. Ltd., on Saturday night.
Jerry Dias, president of Unifor, the union representing the Dominion workers, said the three main Canadian grocers — Loblaw, Sobeys’ owner Empire Co. Ltd. and Metro Inc. — should view the situation in Newfoundland as a “new normal” because of the rising frustration among their employees.
“People are feeling disrespected. They’re feeling furious. And people are in a fighting mood,” he said. “We’re quite pleased about that, frankly, because it’s about time that we had the debate in this country about who really are the essential workers.”
In the early days of the pandemic, Loblaw, Empire and Metro all announced they would pay $2 hourly premiums to their staff. On the same day in mid-June, all three grocers then cut the bonus pay, a controversial decision that executives from the chains were called on to explain at a parliamentary committee hearing in Ottawa.
Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, the Liberal MP who led some of the most heated exchanges during that hearing, has said he believes the testimonies provided enough evidence to warrant a Competition Bureau hearing over wage fixing.
It’s been more than a month since the hearing, and both Metro and Loblaw have said they aren’t aware of any investigation and the Competition Bureau has declined to comment on the matter.
But on Monday, Erskine-Smith sent a letter to Competition Bureau commissioner Matthew Boswell asking him to seriously consider launching an investigation into the pay bonuses, or to explain whether the Competition Act needs to be strengthened to give the bureau the ability to better pursue wage-fixing investigations.
Metro and Empire didn’t comment on the letter, and Loblaw did not immediately respond to questions about it on Monday.
Erskine-Smith took issue with both Loblaw president Sarah Davis’s decision to send her competitors a “courtesy email” on June 11 that informed them of her decision to cut the bonus pay, as well as Metro chief executive Eric La Flèche’s comment that he called his counterparts at Loblaw and Empire in May and June to ask about whether they planned to cancel the bonuses.
Neither executive said they gave La Flèche a definitive answer, and Empire chief executive Michael Medline said he asked his legal counsel to be on the call and declined to answer. All three companies have denied any wrongdoing.
“It is inexplicable that senior executives of competitors would have exchanged any calls or emails on the subject of ending the pandemic pay premium,” Erskine-Smith said in his letter. “There is no reason for such communication, except to collaborate among competitors in order to reduce workers’ wages.”
Dias said the bonus cancellations had a major impact on the Dominion talks in Newfoundland, but Unifor is also concerned with a trend toward part-time employment in the grocery sector, with 60 full-time jobs lost in the Dominion bargaining unit last year.
Loblaw on Monday said the Dominion stores will be closed during the strike, though their pharmacies would remain open.