Frustrated union launches provincewide Liquor Mart strike Crown corporation management staffing handful of stores at reduced hours By: Malak Abas Posted: 8:24 AM CDT Tuesday, Aug. 8, 2023 Last Modified: 11:25 AM CDT Wednesday, Aug. 9, 2023 Updates

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This article was published 08/08/2023 (1116 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

More than 1,000 unionized Manitoba Liquor Mart workers shut down stores across the province Tuesday, vowing to stay on picket lines as long as it takes to get a fair wage offer.

“We hope it ends sooner rather than later, because a strike’s always a last resort,” Manitoba Government and General Employees’ Union president Kyle Ross told a morning news conference.

“What they’re offering now isn’t remotely close to a fair offer.”

The MGEU began rotating walkouts at Manitoba Liquor and Lotteries-operated retail outlets July 19 and a week later agreed to the Crown corporation’s request to bring in a conciliator.

But after a series of staff lockouts over the holiday weekend, the union made the decision Monday to strike provincewide.

“We were really disappointed,” Ross said, adding the conciliator was meeting with MLL Tuesday afternoon, and the union would “continue to evaluate the situation” beyond that.

“We were really hoping that our members, as a show of good faith to Manitobans, that we could serve them over the weekend… I think it just showed that this government and (MLL) doesn’t understand the population, I think they don’t understand their workers.”

Five Liquor Marts — the Crestview, Garden City Square, Grant Park, Hargrave at Ellice and St. Vital Square locations — were scheduled to open from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday to Friday this week staffed by managers, according to the Liquor Mart website. The Brandon Victoria Avenue location is scheduled to be open 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday to Friday.

All rural Liquor Marts are scheduled to be closed all week except for the Thompson location, which was scheduled to open at reduced hours Tuesday to Friday.

The strike will include the MLL distribution centre and head office. Picket lines will be set up at different Liquor Marts across the city each day.

“I don’t see (our) tactics as heavy-handed,” Ross said. “They’re an opportunity for the employer to understand that we are serious.”

MLL president Gerry Sul said the corporation has a strong contingency plan.

“We know we can run seven or eight stores such that we can keep it stocked to the roof, such that we can have predictable hours of operation and meet Manitobans’ expectations that product will be there when they show up,” Sul said.

The plan includes the use of replacement workers from a local delivery firm crossing the picket line at the Route 90 distribution centre, the closure of Express Liquor Mart locations, focusing resources on select retail outlets and possibly setting up a rotating schedule to open rural locations.

Sul said MLL’s offer is in line with other ratified agreements in Manitoba and believes MGEU isn’t painting a clear picture of what MLL is offering staff.

“The longer this drags out, I think it’s unfortunate for our employees,” he said. “We want our employees back at the end of the day… we still feel that the union is shielding them from all the details.”

Approximately 1,400 MLL workers have not had a contract since March 2022 and want wage raises in line with those obtained by Premier Heather Stefanson and her cabinet — 3.3 per cent in 2023 and 3.6 per cent in both 2024 and 2025.

MLL is offering two per cent a year over four years, and raising the hourly starting wage $2.38 above Manitoba’s minimum wage.

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The current starting hourly wage for MLL workers is $14.91, increasing to $15.30 in October in line with the raise in minimum wage. The promised bump for entry-level workers would increase it to $17.68 hourly.

Employees are receiving strike pay — $500 for 20 hours of picketing weekly.

Near the Garden City Square Liquor Mart on Leila Avenue, picketers held signs in the rain Tuesday morning as drivers honked in support.

Customers who expected the doors to be open at 10 a.m. said they were behind workers.

“If the staff are not being treated fairly, if they’re not getting their fair share, then yes, I am supportive… I guess I’m going to go to a (beer) vendor,” said Joanna Bielecki.

Customers lined up outside the Grant Park location Tuesday afternoon. While the wait to enter the store was short, some product shelves were bare.

Jennifer Wiens said while she would’ve preferred to be able to visit a store closer to her, she called the strike action “important.”

“It’s obviously more of a dangerous job… there should be hazard pay,” she said after making her purchase.

Some private vendors immediately saw more customers and higher profits Tuesday, a double-edged sword for Norwood Beer Store general manager Haley Collen.

While the store had made $1,700 in sales by early afternoon, Collen said she is struggling to receive certain brands and even basic supplies provided by MLL, such as sale tags.

“I’m definitely not surprised (workers are striking). I mean, they’re pissed, in all honesty, and I understand that they’re pissed,” she said.

“It’s just more frustrating in the way that I can’t get the stuff that people want.”

Manitoba’s Progressive Conservative government remained silent on the strike action. In an email, a spokesperson for Andrew Smith, the minister responsible for MLL, redirected questions to the corporation.

MGEU has repeatedly accused the province of using a restrictive wage mandate to prevent fair bargaining between workers and MLL.

NDP critic for MLL Lisa Naylor (Wolseley) was asked about the dispute at an unrelated event Tuesday.

“Heather Stefanson and Brian Pallister before her have continued to pick fights with workers they have continued to mandate, or to direct, what different groups should be doing, whether it was Hydro, whether it was the University of Manitoba, and now Manitoba Liquor and Lotteries,” she said.

“It’s dictated by Heather Stefanson what should be happening at the table for negotiation and she can stop this strike today if she steps up and takes some responsibility for it.”

— With files from Danielle Da Silva

malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca

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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.