LCBO workers and supporters hold a strike rally at a picket line in front of an LCBO store in Toronto on July 6.Christopher Katsarov/The Canadian Press
Unionized employees of the Liquor Control Board of Ontario have ratified a new three-year collective agreement, marking a formal end to the two-week strike that’s closed hundreds of LCBO retail stores across the province.
Stores are set to reopen on Tuesday.
“We as workers thank all of Ontarians for understanding and seeing what this fight was really about,” said Colleen MacLeod, the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) bargaining team chair. “It was about protecting their asset – our asset – that we refuse to allow this government to devalue.”
More than 660 LCBO stores have been closed since the strike began on July 5, leaving restaurants, bars and summer events like weddings in disarray. OPSEU, which represents 10,000 LCBO employees, walked off the job citing fears of job losses because of the provincial government’s plan to expand alcohol sales to allow convenience stores and all grocery stores to sell beer, wine and ready-to-drink cocktails.
The agreement, signed Friday, promises to convert roughly 1,000 casual workers to permanent part-time status and hire 60 permanent full-time employees in its warehouse operations, and includes better access to health benefits and improved severance packages.
It also includes an 8-per-cent wage increase over three years – up from 7 per cent in the original offer on July 4 – as well as an additional 7.8-per-cent wage increase for the LCBO’s lowest-paid workers and a wage adjustment for certain warehouse trade positions.
As Ontario’s alcohol expansion plans are set to continue, the settlement also makes it clear that no LCBO retail stores will close because of marketplace development, so long as the agreement is alive. A cap on the number of independent retailers that sell LCBO products is also part of the deal.
“We had to take strike action because we needed to protect our futures,” said Ms. MacLeod. “With this tentative agreement, we’ve done just that. We’ve protected ourselves for the life of the collective agreement. And we won’t see any store closures, we have a guarantee of no layoffs.”
The LCBO said on Saturday that both sides had signed off on a return-to-work protocol. Doubts were cast on a previous settlement reached on Friday afternoon when the LCBO accused the union of “bad-faith bargaining” and said it planned to file an unfair labour practice complaint because it said the union introduced new monetary demands after the tentative agreement was signed.
The union says that while the new contract sets Ontario on a better path, the strike has made it clear that Doug Ford’s alcohol everywhere plan is ultimately bad news for the province.
“Ontarians are more aware than ever that Ford’s plan isn’t for them, it’s for big-box CEOs,” JP Hornick, OPSEU president, said in a press release. “We have no doubt that Ford’s webs of corporate buddies and corrupt backroom deals will continue to be exposed.”
May Brand, owner of Sweaty Betty’s bar in Toronto, said she’s happy a deal has been reached, but is frustrated to learn stores could be reopening just as she finishes stocking her shelves from alternative retailers.
With her bar’s busiest day of the year around the corner on July 27 during the street festival OssFest, Ms. Brand said she panicked when the strike began. With the LCBO closed, she was forced to stock up on whatever was available from local distillers, which can cost double.
“We ran out pretty quickly and it’s not easy to get liquor through any other distributor in Ontario,” she said. “We had to spend money we didn’t have.”
Alex Purdy, head bartender at Toronto restaurant Florette, said trying to order alcohol online and over the phone during the strike was a “nightmare” and the restaurant received no support.
“We’re a small business. I feel like the bigger businesses would have had an easier time getting alcohol from other sources,” he said. “How are people supposed to get their booze and stay open?”
During the strike, Mr. Purdy said Florette completely ran out of vodka. However, he noted that guests in the restaurant were sympathetic and that it pushed the restaurant to make connections with local distilleries and breweries, some of which gave Florette good deals on cases of alcohol to help them stay afloat.
“We all said ‘all right, let’s see how we can fair this storm together.’”
With reports from Pippa Norman