Manitoba liquor workers plan multi-day job action

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This article was published 24/07/2023 (830 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Hundreds of Manitoba Liquor & Lotteries Corp. workers will walk off the job again this week, with the union representing them saying contract negotiations with the employer have stalled.

Liquor Mart staff across the province will take to the picket lines Wednesday and Thursday, and workers at MLL’s liquor distribution site in Winnipeg will walk Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, the Manitoba Government and General Employees’ Union said.

More than 1,400 liquor workers and MGEU members held a single-day strike July 19, shutting down Liquor Mart retail locations across the province save for six in Winnipeg and one in Brandon, which were staffed by managers.

Distribution centre workers walked July 19 and 20.

On Monday, a spokesperson for MLL said the Crown corporation has recommended bringing in a conciliator to assist with negotiations, and MGEU has refused.

“Despite the MGEU claiming their best intentions to not impact Manitobans’ summer, (MLL) contingency plans will soon be unable to entirely mitigate the negative downstream effects to the hospitality industry and summer festivals, the hundreds of private liquor retailers who will not receive deliveries, and on customers across the province when stores are closed or operating with limited inventory,” the spokesperson said in an email.

MGEU liquor workers have been working under an expired contract since March 2022.

The union is currently in collective bargaining, and is asking for raises in line with Manitoba MLAs and Premier Heather Stefanson, starting at 3.3 per cent this year, and a further 3.6 per cent in 2024 and 2025.

MLL has offered a wage increase of two per cent per year over four years, with bumps for those at the end of the pay scale to ensure they are in line with provincial minimum-wage increases.

That offer did not change at the bargaining table July 21, MGEU president Kyle Ross said Monday.

He derided the set wage mandate as “restrictive” and accused leadership of making “disingenuous and misleading” comments playing down its part in negotiations.

“Here’s what we’re hearing at the bargaining table and other MGEU tables: ‘This is all we can offer,’” Ross told reporters near the legislative building.

“What is clear is that Heather Stefanson and cabinet are calling the shots. It’s very clear that the Stefanson government is imposing restrictive wage mandates on employers across the public sector.”

On July 21, Government Services Minister James Teitsma told the Free Press the negotiations are between MGEU and MLL, rather than with the government.

A spokesperson representing Teitsma reiterated that stance after Ross’s comments Monday.

“Government is not the employer, and all inquiries on the status of bargaining should be directed to (MLL),” the spokesperson said in an email. “We urge both sides to remain at the bargaining table for the benefit of all Manitobans.”

David Camfield, an associate professor of labour studies at the University of Manitoba, was skeptical about the line of reasoning.

While legally, negotiations are between employees and employer, Camfield called the provincial government an “invisible third party,” through mandating how high wages can be raised for public-sector workers.

“I don’t believe it for a second. It was very clear during the (University of Manitoba Faculty Association) strike in late 2021, the provincial government gives bargaining mandates to broader public-sector organizations that are receiving government funding or that are Crown corporations,” Camfield said.

“And yet, because it’s not actually the legal employer, it can do this at arm’s length. But it’s tying the hands or giving, really, a directive to the actual employer about how it’s going to conduct negotiations.”

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In 2021, UMFA members went on strike for 35 days. Part of the deal that ended the labour action included sending salary issues to an independent arbitrator that would not take government-issued mandates into account.

Camfield said it wasn’t likely the province would get more publicly involved, adding as the Oct. 3 election approaches, it may want to avoid appearing in conflict with low-wage workers.

“I think the question will be: what will the union do next? How assertive are workers? To what extent do they really want to push to get something better, in terms of an offer, and what are they prepared to do to get that?”

The MGEU represents 17,000 civil servants currently without a contract, including about 11,000 government employees, 1,780 at MLL, 1,716 at Manitoba Public Insurance, and 2,000 at Manitoba colleges.

malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca

Malak Abas
Reporter

Malak Abas is a city reporter at the Free Press. Born and raised in Winnipeg’s North End, she led the campus paper at the University of Manitoba before joining the Free Press in 2020. Read more about Malak.

Every piece of reporting Malak produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.