\n<\/p>\n
Canadian warehouse workers have signed the first-ever collective agreement with Walmart, a breakthrough labour organizers are calling a \u201chistoric and powerful step\u201d.<\/p>\n
But the union says the deal with a corporation long hostile to organized labour is only an opening salvo in a broader fight to unionize major employers across the country.<\/p>\n
In May, workers in Mississauga, Ontario, signed a contract with Walmart, the world\u2019s largest employer, that includes a pay bump, guarantees over working conditions and a lump sum payout to settle allegations of unfair labour practices.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese members were determined to have workplace democracy and they stuck with it,\u201d said Lana Payne, president of Unifor, Canada\u2019s largest private sector union. \u201cTheir courage and determination, their decision to be part of a collective bargaining table with one of the biggest corporations in the world, is why they made labour history.\u201d<\/p>\n
Workers at the high-volume distribution warehouse \u2013 which serves one of the biggest markets for Walmart in Canada \u2013 first decided to unionize in 2024. It took two years before both sides agreed on a contract.<\/p>\n
Payne said the victory came amid a deliberate strategy by the union to target parts of the business workers that could exert the most influence. While retail locations have unionized in the past, the powerful distribution centres that supply more than 100 brick and mortar stores and oversee online orders have proven elusive.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe felt that we needed to put serious effort into targeting the entirety of the supply chain,\u201d she said. \u201cThis victory will create momentum across the warehouse sector.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the case of the Mississauga effort, Walmart raised wages for other workers in the region but not the distribution centre that had unionized. As part of the newly signed collective agreement, Walmart will pay a lump sum to settle an unfair labour practice complaint. The company did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n
The dramatic transformation of the economy in recent years has raised the power of technology and e-commerce companies, reshaping the nature of how workers organize, said Payne.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur labour laws are not built to be able to contend with massive corporations who can fight unionization, and so they frustrate the system,\u201d she said. \u201cWhen you look at the situation we\u2019re in, it\u2019s not unlike what workers faced 70 years ago, when unions were really making kind of groundbreaking strides with auto workers or steelworkers or mining workers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Unifor has already opened a second front in its battle: an Amazon facility in British Columbia, a province where laws are friendlier to organized labour.<\/p>\n
Recently, British Columbia\u2019s labour board found that Amazon unlawfully withheld scheduled wage increases from workers at the facility, despite giving raises to every other Amazon facility in the region. The company will probably have to pay back more than $1m in back wages.<\/p>\n
Amazon said it misunderstood the labour code and believed it \u201cprevented us from making changes to pay for employees at t[he warehouse]\u201d.<\/p>\n
But the labour board\u2019s decision means that the employees previously left out will now get their \u201cupdated compensation as soon as possible\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re glad to be able to do that,\u201d an Amazon spokesperson, Eileen Hards, said of the pay updates. \u201cTaking care of our people has always been our priority, and that remains true as we continue to follow the legal process and bargain with the union in good faith.\u201d<\/p>\n
While two sides struggle to agree on a contract, the labour code in British Columbia gives the government the ability to impose a first contract if an agreement isn\u2019t reached..<\/p>\n
Recently, an independent mediator found that Amazon was responsible for the breakdown of first-contract bargaining and recommended the dispute be resolved through binding mediation-arbitration.<\/p>\n
Jim Stanford, an economist and director of the Centre for Future Work, said Amazon and Walmart were among companies that have huge power over pricing \u2013 not only over consumers, but also what they pay suppliers and workers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s an incredible contradiction between [Walmart] being one of the largest, most profitable companies in the world, and many of its workers having to turn to food banks because they can\u2019t buy groceries,\u201d Stanford said. \u201cBut with a union and a contract, workers have a chance to win a fairer share of the wealth that they\u2019re producing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stanford said that in recent years, there has been an \u201cattitudinal shift\u201d whereby workers understand their employers may take advantage of them, making their jobs more precarious and undermining their compensation. So despite the challenges, the recent success will probably lead to more union drives.<\/p>\n
\u201cWorkers around the world have been struggling for years to try and win a share of Walmart\u2019s profits in the form of higher wages and better jobs \u2013 and it has been a David and Goliath struggle, because of Walmart\u2019s power and their stridently anti-union attitudes,\u201d Stanford said. \u201cBut the collective agreement with Walmart is clear. There are things that fundamentally change how one\u2019s work life unfolds, and it will make a huge difference to these workers.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Canadian warehouse workers have signed the first-ever collective agreement with Walmart, a breakthrough labour organizers are calling a \u201chistoric and powerful step\u201d. But the union says the deal with a corporation long hostile to organized labour is only an opening salvo in a broader fight to unionize major employers across the country. In May, workers<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":50126,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[4530,696,9480,1022,3145,2719,158,22895,1438],"class_list":{"0":"post-50125","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-canadian","9":"tag-deal","10":"tag-firstever","11":"tag-historic","12":"tag-sign","13":"tag-union","14":"tag-walmart","15":"tag-warehouse","16":"tag-workers"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50125\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/50126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}