Strike may hurt PCs’ election buzz

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 11/08/2023 (762 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

As if the summer of 2023 wasn’t dry enough, now Manitobans are finding it even more parched than usual.

After weeks of rotating lockouts, Liquor Mart employees have taken to the picket line in a provincewide strike that has thrown a spanner in the works of not just the Liquor Marts themselves, but into the works of all who depend on the province’s distribution infrastructure, too.

The 1,400 Liquor Mart employees now striking find themselves in a familiar position among Manitoba public sector workers: trying to get the province to come to the table on a new contract. The workers have been without one since the previous agreement expired in March of last year — not as long as some waited (the Manitoba Association of Health Care professionals went five years before finally striking a deal in July) but still longer than it needed to be.

At the heart of the strike is the issue of compensation: Liquor Mart employees want more than the two per cent pay increase over four years the province is offering.

Frankly, their frustration about the optics is fair. Two per cent over four years for most of the employees is significantly less than members of the legislature just recently gave themselves, with lawmakers getting 3.3 per cent just for this year, and 3.6 per cent for the next two years.

Two per cent over four years is seems like a slap by comparison, especially considering the challenges faced by Liquor Mart employees over the last few years, from the rampant thefts which exposed employees to danger, to the subsequent security upgrades which disrupted their work and changed the way their jobs are performed.

The province has contracted some non-union workers to perform duties normally done by the striking staff, but that has only just kept the flow of product from coming to a total halt.

As Manitobans ponder a coming provincial election, leaving Liquor Mart employees hanging to the point of a provincewide strike comes off as pretty poor politics for a government aiming to hold on to power. The strike will affect many Manitobans, some of them significantly: the strike has even raised concerns over the risk of alcohol withdrawal as addicts become pressed as a result of the closure.

‘Forced into sobriety’: Liquor Mart closures spark concerns about alcohol withdrawal

It should be said that for those not at risk of withdrawal, alcohol is simply a vice, not a necessity. The Liquor Mart closures aren’t going to remove something from most Manitobans’ lives they need. However, it is something people are used to being around, and its absence will be felt.

It will be felt especially acutely in small towns, which may lack a private vendor. It will affect the many breweries and distilleries which have popped up across the province, who — while likely receiving increased in-house customer traffic as a result of the strike — are no doubt put in a tough spot by the closure of such a large part of their supply chain.

And then there’s the hospitality industry, for whom the strike is just one more blow, one more unneeded complication as it strains to get back to its feet in the post-pandemic era.

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There is a simple enough solution to this: it’s time for the PC government to get over its apparent allergy to negotiating with workers, and make a deal. The strike has already escalated to a point a sitting government shouldn’t want it to reach.

Things will only get tougher from here.

The choice for the government is this: give workers a better option — perhaps the same offer MLAs took — and spend a little more money than you like.

Or let the strike drag on, and risk ticking off Manitobans from Churchill to Emerson to the point where it could play a part in election results, come October.

Pick your poison.