On Saturday, June 13, 2020, at 1 pm, Dollarama workers from the distribution center and their allies will rally in Jarry Park at the corner of Jarry and Saint-Laurent boulevard to protest the inadequacies of the health and safety provisions in their workplace and to demand further changes.
Dollarama is celebrating another successful year at its Annual General Meeting on June 10th, 2020. Its sales are up, it expanded the number of stores and its stock-holders benefitted. None of this is surprising, it was designated an essential service at the beginning of the lock-down and stayed open.
“Who paid the price for Dollarama’s profits?” asks Mostafa Henaway of the Immigrant Workers Centre. “In the rush to profit, Dollarama initially treated its workers in shops, warehouses and its distribution centre as though the pandemic was of little consequence. It put its growth and profits over the health and safety needs of its workers.”
The Immigrant Workers Centre and the Temporary Agency Workers Association has been helping workers understand their workplace rights and encouraging them to demand better conditions. Workers denounced their unsafe work conditions during a press conference in late March while an on-line petition initiated by a non-profit, SumOfUs, garnered thousands of signatures showing public concern and support for workers on the frontlines of the economy.
Pressure from workers and organizations prompted improvements in health and safety conditions while wages were increased in the stores, warehouses and distribution centres during the pandemic.
Aines Charles, a distribution centre worker for ten years was fired for pointing out to a supervisor the number of COVID cases on the floor. He says the changes were too slow in arriving, claiming that it was a case of too little too late. ”When I found out about several colleagues who were infected by COVID-19, I raised my concerns to management,” explains Charles, “their response was to get my agency to fire me.”
Job Delicat held a post as a trainer. He lost his job after responding to concerns of poor health and safety regulations raised by workers. “There is an atmosphere of fear about losing our job in the context of this COVID and it hangs over us keeping us silent to the dangers”.
“Management overheard me discussing with workers their concerns about the bottleneck traffic caused by getting our lunches inside the same fridge during mealtime and I believe they got paranoid that I was starting some sort of insurrection in the workplace,” Delicat explains. “I was called to the office that same day and told my contract was over after three years working there.”
Many Dollarama worker live in the neighbourhoods hardest-hit by COVID-19, notably Montreal North, Cote-des-Neiges, and Ville Saint-Laurent. This multiplies the risk they face going to work in crowded warehouses and distribution centres. They’re tired of having their health sacrificed at the altar of corporate profits and want to be treated with respect and dignity. They want Dollarama to hire them directly rather than through agencies. This would afford them better workplace protection as they would be employed directly for Dollarama, as they would be able to directly assert their rights to their employer rather than through the intermediary of the temp agency.
Many of these essential workers, heralded as “guardian angels” who risk their lives every day to keep the economy running are asylum seekers without permanent residency. They demand to be given status as permanent residents, and to keep the three dollar increase in their wages after the pandemic subsides end which would return these workers back to salaries below $15 an hour and thus back into working poverty..
Contact: Mostafa Henaway, Immigrant Workers Centre at (514) 659-0106 or iwc_cti@yahoo.com
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