Sept. 27, 2021 "Real Canadian Superstore staff in Alberta vote 97 per cent in favour of strike action": Today I found this article by Blair McBride in the Edmonton Journal:
Thousands of Real Canadian Superstore employees in Alberta could go on strike after an overwhelming vote in support of job action.
Ninety-seven per cent of voting members of the union voted to strike last week. About 10,000 union members work at Superstores in the province, said United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 401 spokesperson Scott Payne.
Local president Thomas Hesse said the vote “reflects anger and frustration” felt by workers.
“They can’t work from home. Out of 40 Superstores in Alberta, over 30 have had (COVID-19) outbreaks,” Hesse said. “They’ve been at the front lines ensuring we can cook and eat at our kitchen tables with our families.”
The latest round of bargaining started Monday and is expected to last until Friday, he said. Negotiations between the two sides have been ongoing for more than one year.
The strike vote came after the union was unsatisfied with Loblaw’s latest offer to employees. The union has 72 hours to serve strike notice if one occurs, Payne said.
Hesse declined to provide details on what the employer had previously offered, saying conditions created by the COVID-19 pandemic call for an unprecedented analysis of what employees are seeking.
“I talked to a cashier the other day. She said, ‘I work in a makeshift plexiglass terrarium. I’m scared. There’s (minimal) enforcement of rules, there’s no mandatory vaccination of customers and hundreds of people are pouring through the workplace daily.’
“I’m seeing people terrified going to work in crowded public places,” Hesse said. “Their billionaire bosses gave them so-called hero pay and then took that away. It’s almost like the employer saw it as a calculation error in their enormous profits.”
Loblaw rolled out $2-per-hour pay raises to encourage workers in the early months of the pandemic. It phased it out in June 2020, “clawed back far sooner than the (COVID-19) risks dissipated,” said Payne.
But wage and benefit issues are on the table in negotiations, and the union is seeking “very significant” improvements, Hesse said.
“(There’s) one word to describe what the employees are looking for: lots. What will the tipping point be when workers will say, ‘this makes me feel OK to go into this environment?’ We’re bargaining this week to probe that question. What is an essential worker worth in this environment?”
Loblaw spokesperson Catherine Thomas said the company had no comment on the issue while bargaining is ongoing.
Joseph Marchand, a labour economist and an economics professor at the University of Alberta, said there’s always room for an employer to go above and beyond COVID-19 safety measures in the workplace.
“I understand that the workers would want the same requirements that are in the non-essential businesses,” Marchand said. “But it also goes the other way. I’ve seen at least one of these video snippets where people are very angry at this new policy. There’s been backlash on employees who are just following the rules. If these incidents happened to employees, they would also feel unsafe due to possible violence.”
In terms of demands for better wages, Marchand noted that many government policies aimed at improving conditions for workers, such as the Canada Recovery Benefit (CRB) have distorted labour markets and created upward pressure on wages.
The CRB ends on Oct. 23.
“I question whether there’ll be that upward pressure as that policy response goes away,” he said. “I wonder where that leaves wages afterwards. The upward pressure on wages could start to go away, but who knows what COVID will deliver us?”
Sept. 28, 2021: There are 22 comments:
The Supper greedy Weston's, Remember the French Revolution! At least the French tried to do the right thing. These are the people who cause the problems for average Canadians. Eat the Rich!
Dec. 9, 2021 "Starbucks baristas are so burned out from mobile app orders that it's sparked a union drive": Today I found this article by Hilary Russ and Julia Love in the Financial Post:
NEW YORK/SAN FRANCISCO — Starbucks Corp. baristas waging a union campaign in Buffalo, New York, say they are organizing in part to have more of a say in the workload created by the company’s mobile app, which has left them struggling to keep up with surges in orders for US$6 Frappuccinos and other custom coffee drinks.
On Thursday, the National Labor Relations Board will tally ballots from employees at three stores in the area. Baristas and shift supervisors there are seeking to join Workers United, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union. They need a simple majority of votes cast for each store to win at that location.
The pandemic has created a surge in mobile orders at Starbucks and other restaurant chains.
The baristas in Buffalo and elsewhere complain that they cannot limit the number of mobile orders per hour, leading to unexpected surges they struggle to fulfill.
Individual stores can turn off mobile orders completely for their locations temporarily, but that requires a manager’s approval, the company confirmed, and customers can then order from other nearby locations.
Baristas said that adds to those other stores’ burdens, but the company said such shifts do not necessarily lead to overflows in other stores.
The union election involves about 100 workers altogether, a tiny fraction of the roughly 220,000 employees in the U.S. cafes of Seattle-based Starbucks. But a win in Buffalo could catch fire as baristas who have also complained about thin staffing and little control over workplace conditions enjoy more power in a tight labour market.
Since the Buffalo campaign was announced in August, three other nearby locations and one store as far away as Arizona have sought to follow its lead.
“We respect the process that is underway and, independent of any outcome in these elections, we will continue to stay true to our Mission and Values,” Starbucks Chief Executive Officer Kevin Johnson told employees in a letter on Tuesday.
Employees who spoke with Reuters said they want higher wages, seniority pay and better staffing levels. But burnout from mobile orders and frustration with other tech systems has been an important driver in the campaign, interviews with five workers suggest.
“Technology was made for customers and not for employees,” said Casey Moore, a barista at one of the Starbucks locations whose votes are being counted on Thursday. “Without a union we haven’t been able to voice how the technology could also work for us.”
A Starbucks spokesman said the company is constantly updating its app based on employee and customer feedback.
Ticking time bomb
Moore and other employees interviewed by Reuters said they are not opposed to tech in principle but want more of a say in how it is developed and deployed in stores.
When Starbucks launched seasonal holiday drinks and gave out free tumblers in November, the mobile ordering system was so inundated with orders at one Buffalo area store that staff fell behind by as much as 40 minutes and threw away at least 30 drinks abandoned by customers, said James Skretta, a barista there.
The chain has about 20 stores in and around Buffalo. It launched its app in 2009 but added new ways to pay and earn points in 2020 as rewards memberships soared during the pandemic.
The mobile order app “completely changed what it means to be a barista,” said Danka Dragic, a shift supervisor at one Buffalo area store.
Starbucks baristas are not the only workers who have balked at stores’ high-tech makeovers. Five workers at a Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc location in Austin, Texas, quit after becoming overwhelmed with mobile orders, according to media reports.
Walmart Inc. in June rolled out an app that it said enables employees to complete various tasks from their phones, but labor advocates warned the technology could open the door to more stringent productivity quotas.
A Walmart spokesperson said the app eases aspects of work including scheduling, clocking in and communication for employees.
“Workers across industries are challenging the creep of punitive technology in the workplace,” Bianca Agustin, corporate accountability director at labor nonprofit United for Respect, said in a statement.
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters has fought to ensure sensors and other technology installed in United Parcel Service Inc trucks are not used to punish drivers, and hospitality union UNITE HERE has pushed for tech aimed at boosting worker protection, including safety buttons for hotel cleaners.
Starbucks baristas also chafe at a performance management program that rates their customer service — especially because they are under pressure by other technology that tracks how fast they process drive-thru orders.
“It’s as though you are making drinks under the pressure of trying to defuse a ticking time bomb,” Skretta said.
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