The failure of Canada’s grocers to reinstate “hero pay” for employees amid an exponential rise in COVID-19 cases is “about greed, period,” the head of the country’s largest private-sector union said Friday.
Unifor national president Jerry Dias said while front-line supermarket workers are facing the biggest risks, executives are receiving the biggest rewards.
Top grocery bosses have cashed multi-million dollar bonuses as sales and profits soar during the pandemic — even as they refuse to bring back pay bumps for employees, he said.
“Employees on the front line are at risk every day and yet it’s the executives being rewarded handsomely,” Dias said. “They’re making record profits but don’t have the decency to pay their employees what they’re worth.”
His comments come after the federal NDP critic for economic development, MP Brian Masse, sent a letter to the heads of Canada’s biggest supermarkets this week saying workers are doing risky work and again deserve a wage premium to keep stores open and shelves stocked.
Three grocery chains — Loblaws, Metro and Sobeys — ushered in a $2-an-hour pay bump in the early days of the pandemic. It was cancelled after the first wave subsided.
While each chain has sporadically reintroduced either wage bonuses or other incentives, it appears none have offered workers pay premiums as a result of the Omicron surge.
Loblaw did not respond to multiple requests for comment, while Metro declined to comment.
However, Sobeys shared a letter CEO Michael Medline sent in response to Masse’s concerns.
“We are the only retailer in Canada who publicly committed to reinstating our Hero Pay/Lockdown Bonus program when regions or provinces go back into lockdowns that close all non-essential retail,” he said.
Sobeys has distributed over $110 million in “hero pay” and bonuses to its front-line team members since the beginning of the pandemic, Medline said.
Sobeys spokesperson Jacquelin Weatherbee said in an email that the company is closely watching the constantly changing restrictions.
If government-mandated lockdowns once again close all non-essential retail, the grocer will reinstate its lockdown bonus, she said.
Risk never greater, Dias says
Yet Dias said the risk of catching COVID-19 has never been greater for retail workers as infections surge across the country.
“Pandemic pay was a recognition that front-line workers are at an increased risk from the coronavirus,” he said. “That danger is still there.”
Dalhousie University professor of food distribution and policy Sylvain Charlebois said other parts of the food industry, including processing and distribution, have seen wages increase permanently during the pandemic.
“Employees in stores also deserve higher wages,” Charlebois said. “It’s time to look at wages seriously.”
Other retailers, such as Costco Wholesale Canada Ltd. and The Home Depot Canada, replaced temporary pandemic bonuses with permanent wage increases.
However, part of the issue in food retail is that it’s a “high volume, low margin environment,” Charlebois said.
“If grocery chains raised wages by $2 an hour across the board, most of the stores in their networks would likely run at a loss,” he said. “That’s the reality of grocery shopping.”
Increasing automation
Meanwhile, increasing automation could reduce the number of workers companies need to run a grocery store, but those people could be better paid, Charlebois said.
“Knowing the financial realities of running a grocery store, you can’t afford to keep the same amount of people (and increase both automation and wages across the board),” he said.
But Dias said employees deserve a living wage.
“You can always find justification not to do the right thing,” he said. “The bottom line is those on the front lines deserve to have decent hours and to make a decent living wage.”
UFCW Canada, which also represents grocery retail workers in Canada, did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
HALIFAX – Ottawa is negotiating a $500-million bailout for Nova Scotia’s privately owned electric utility, saying the money will be used to prevent a big spike in electricity rates.
Federal Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson made the announcement today in Halifax, saying Nova Scotia Power Inc. needs the money to cover higher costs resulting from the delayed delivery of electricity from the Muskrat Falls hydroelectric plant in Labrador.
Wilkinson says that without the money, the subsidiary of Emera Inc. would have had to increase rates by 19 per cent over “the short term.”
Nova Scotia Power CEO Peter Gregg says the deal, once approved by the province’s energy regulator, will keep rate increases limited “to be around the rate of inflation,” as costs are spread over a number of years.
The utility helped pay for construction of an underwater transmission link between Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, but the Muskrat Falls project has not been consistent in delivering electricity over the past five years.
Those delays forced Nova Scotia Power to spend more on generating its own electricity.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
TORONTO – Roots Corp. may have built its brand on all things comfy and cosy, but its CEO says activewear is now “really becoming a core part” of the brand.
The category, which at Roots spans leggings, tracksuits, sports bras and bike shorts, has seen such sustained double-digit growth that Meghan Roach plans to make it a key part of the business’ future.
“It’s an area … you will see us continue to expand upon,” she told analysts on a Friday call.
The Toronto-based retailer’s push into activewear has taken shape over many years and included several turns as the official designer and supplier of Team Canada’s Olympic uniform.
But consumers have had plenty of choice when it comes to workout gear and other apparel suited to their sporting needs. On top of the slew of athletic brands like Nike and Adidas, shoppers have also gravitated toward Lululemon Athletica Inc., Alo and Vuori, ramping up competition in the activewear category.
Roach feels Roots’ toehold in the category stems from the fit, feel and following its merchandise has cultivated.
“Our product really resonates with (shoppers) because you can wear it through multiple different use cases and occasions,” she said.
“We’ve been seeing customers come back again and again for some of these core products in our activewear collection.”
Her remarks came the same day as Roots revealed it lost $5.2 million in its latest quarter compared with a loss of $5.3 million in the same quarter last year.
The company said the second-quarter loss amounted to 13 cents per diluted share for the quarter ended Aug. 3, the same as a year earlier.
In presenting the results, Roach reminded analysts that the first half of the year is usually “seasonally small,” representing just 30 per cent of the company’s annual sales.
Sales for the second quarter totalled $47.7 million, down from $49.4 million in the same quarter last year.
The move lower came as direct-to-consumer sales amounted to $36.4 million, down from $37.1 million a year earlier, as comparable sales edged down 0.2 per cent.
The numbers reflect the fact that Roots continued to grapple with inventory challenges in the company’s Cooper fleece line that first cropped up in its previous quarter.
Roots recently began to use artificial intelligence to assist with daily inventory replenishments and said more tools helping with allocation will go live in the next quarter.
Beyond that time period, the company intends to keep exploring AI and renovate more of its stores.
It will also re-evaluate its design ranks.
Roots announced Friday that chief product officer Karuna Scheinfeld has stepped down.
Rather than fill the role, the company plans to hire senior level design talent with international experience in the outdoor and activewear sectors who will take on tasks previously done by the chief product officer.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
VANCOUVER – Mediated talks between the union representing HandyDART workers in Metro Vancouver and its employer, Transdev, are set to resume today as a strike that has stopped most services drags into a second week.
No timeline has been set for the length of the negotiations, but Joe McCann, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1724, says they are willing to stay there as long as it takes, even if talks drag on all night.
About 600 employees of the door-to-door transit service for people unable to navigate the conventional transit system have been on strike since last Tuesday, pausing service for all but essential medical trips.
Hundreds of drivers rallied outside TransLink’s head office earlier this week, calling for the transportation provider to intervene in the dispute with Transdev, which was contracted to oversee HandyDART service.
Transdev said earlier this week that it will provide a reply to the union’s latest proposal on Thursday.
A statement from the company said it “strongly believes” that their employees deserve fair wages, and that a fair contract “must balance the needs of their employees, clients and taxpayers.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
