Workers are seen on strike on a picket line outside a Metro grocery store in Toronto on Saturday, July 29, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Cole BurstonCole Burston/The Canadian Press
Metro Inc. has asked for a mediator from Ontario’s Ministry of Labour to step in to resolve a strike that has shuttered 27 stores in and around Toronto for more than two weeks. But the union representing roughly 3,700 employees affected by the labour dispute says it will not participate in mediation.
On Thursday, the Montreal-based grocer announced that it has asked for an independent third party appointed by the ministry, known as a conciliation officer, to help the parties resolve their differences.
Over the weekend, Metro asked Unifor to return to the bargaining table, but the union refused, saying its workers are hoping for a better wage offer from the company.
The strike began on July 29, after members of Unifor Local 414 rejected a tentative four-year agreement their bargaining committee reached with the company. The tentative agreement included wage increases, but workers have continued to raise concerns about an affordability crisis amid rising costs for basic necessities, including groceries.
Last week Metro reported a jump in profits to $346.7-million in the third quarter. Profits were boosted by a favourable adjustment on a tax benefit totalling $40.7-million. Not including that one-time benefit, adjusted net earnings grew by 10.9 per cent.
“Metro workers are taking a brave stand against corporate greed and want their fair share of Metro’s enormous profits,” Unifor Local 414 president Gord Currie wrote in a statement Thursday. “Metro cannot strong-arm workers to accept a lesser contract and must return to the table with an offer that takes workers’ demands seriously.”
The tentative agreement reached on July 19 included wage increases of $3.75 per hour for full-time and senior part-time staff, and $2.65 per hour for other part-time staff, to be implemented by July, 2026. Full-time employees were granted an increase in work hours, to 40 hours per week from 37.
The agreement also included a pension increase, introduction of paid sick leave for part-time employees and improvements to employee benefits, among other measures, according to Metro.
“It’s the joint responsibility of Metro and the union to keep trying to negotiate an outcome at the bargaining table, particularly in a context where the parties had reached a very good agreement which both parties recognized as such and that was unanimously recommended by union representatives to the employees,” Metro spokesperson Marie-Claude Bacon wrote in a statement Thursday. “… We hope to welcome our employees back in our stores soon.”