You may soon find it hard to buy hootch

NEWS RELEASE

ONTARIO PUBLIC SERVICE EMPLOYEES UNION

*************************** LCBO workers open Sault Ste. Marie strike headquarters

SAULT STE. MARIE - Strike preparations are in full swing as the Ontario Public Service Employees Union and the LCBO bargain towards a June 24 strike deadline. 

Unionized workers at the LCBO held the grand opening of their strike headquarters this morning in Sault Ste. Marie.

OPSEU represents more than 6,000 workers province-wide at the LCBO. 

The provincial bargaining team has been in negotiations with the LCBO since March 9. 

Since that time, over 30 days of negotiations have taken place. 

The team is currently scheduled to continue bargaining from now right up until the strike deadline of 12:01 a.m. on Wednesday, June 24.

By agreement between the union and the LCBO, talks are taking place under a news blackout. 

“The goal of our negotiations is not to go on strike, but to bargain a collective agreement that protects and creates good jobs in our community,” says Marilyn Morrison, union steward with OPSEU Local 602. “We are hoping to get a deal, but we need to be prepared in case we don’t.”

Thirty years ago, every job at the LCBO was a good permanent job. 

Today, more than 60 percent of the workforce is casual. 

Casuals have no guaranteed hours, no benefits, and an average income that is less than $20,800 a year.

The bargaining team is fighting for improvements for these members so they can live better lives. 

Profits of roughly $5 million in profits and taxes are sent to Queen’s Park each day, and these revenues are generated by just a few thousand people.

The LCBO has the ability to provide good jobs for all of its workers and the communities they live in yet are doing exactly the opposite.

Today, 40 percent of unionized employees still have permanent full-time jobs, but this is changing. 

Among members with fewer than 10 years of service, 88 percent are casual, and just 12 percent are permanent full-time. 

Among those members with fewer than five years of service, 96 percent are casual, and just 4 percent are full-time.

Unionized employees oppose this employer’s agenda.

In May, 93 percent of OPSEU members at the LCBO voted to give their bargaining team a mandate to call a strike if necessary. 

Strike preparations have been underway since then, and with the opening of the strike headquarters today, they are ready to go.

OPSEU members do not want to strike. 

They want a contract that ends the destruction of good jobs and begins to return the LCBO to its historical role as a key provider of good permanent jobs in each and every Ontario community. 

If this can be achieved, there will not be a work stoppage. 

If not, the message to the LCBO is clear: Members are ready to strike the moment their bargaining team gives the word.

Our community needs good jobs, and the unionized employees are ready to fight for them.

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