Loblaw-Shoppers deal could cause union woes

The United Food and Commercial Workers union is trying to organize employees of Shoppers Drug Mart stores, now owned by Loblaw, said a UFCW Ontario regional director Derek Johnstone.

Johnstone said there have been numerous organizing drives at Shoppers stores and phone calls from Shopper employees and “it is our intention and obligation to help them.”

Loblaw finalized a $12.4 billion takeover of 1,253 Shoppers and Pharmaprix stores in March and announced this week the pharmacy chain would start stocking some locations with prepared meals, hot foods and produce later this year, as well as online ordering coupled with in-store pickup.

Shoppers employs about 50,000 workers. Loblaw now owns about 1,800 pharmacies, including the in-store druggists and the Simply Pharmacy brand.

At present, Tammy Smitham, director of communications and corporate affairs for Shoppers, said 15 stores in Quebec, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Manitoba and B.C., are unionized. About 80 per cent of Loblaw’s 125,000 store employees are unionized in more than 1,000 corporate and franchised outlets like No Frills cut-rate supermarkets.

But Loblaw is saying employee relations at its newest acquisition does not involve them.

“We don’t operate the Shoppers Drug Mart stores and we don’t intend to,” said Kevin Groh, Loblaw vice-president of corporate affairs and communication in an email. “This is a fundamental distinction. Shoppers Drug Mart associate owners are independent employers. Their relationship with their employees has in no way been impacted by the Loblaw transaction, nor will it be.”

But the UFCW says Loblaw’s relationship to the pharmacy workers is somewhat like the relationship it has with employees at its unionized No Frills stores, which are also independently-owned. Owners have a committee that negotiates with the union, said Johnstone.

Montreal’s French-language daily LaPresse reported Loblaw plans to sell 12 corporate-owned Maxi discount grocery stores in Quebec within the next three months and rechristen them Heritage, a Loblaw banner that disappeared in 1995.

The CSN has charged that the new independently-owned supermarkets is Loblaw’s way of sidestepping the union. There are 110 Maxi stores in Quebec.

Meanwhile in Northern Quebec, three Loblaw-owned supermarkets have been either on strike or shut down due to lock out since 2012.

There have been no talks of any kind, said a spokesman for the CSN (Confédération des syndicats nationaux), which represents the employees on the picket lines.

“The company has refused to negotiate,” said the CSN’s Louis Serge Houle.

Houle said at this time the union is not attempting to unionize Quebec’s Pharmaprix employees.