Metro says tentative deal reached with striking grocery workers in Toronto

Metro Inc. says it has reached a tentative agreement with Unifor covering striking workers at 27 Metro grocery stores across the Greater Toronto Area.

Details of the tentative deal were not immediately available, but the company said the agreement will be submitted to the employees for a ratification vote, which will take place early Thursday afternoon.

In a statement Wednesday (Aug. 30), Metro called the agreement fair and equitable, adding that the deal was unanimously recommended by the union's bargaining committee and will put an end to the labour dispute if ratified.

"This tentative agreement acknowledges the economic struggle that many of our members face,'' Gord Currie, Unifor Local 414 president, said in a statement.

The employees went on strike on July 29 after rejecting an earlier tentative agreement that the union described as their best in decades.

During the weeks-long dispute, Metro workers began secondary picket lines at two distribution centres, preventing stores from receiving fresh products, a move for which the grocer was granted a temporary injunction.

Metro and Unifor went back to the bargaining table on Tuesday, a month after the strike began and the same day the injunction was granted.

This round of bargaining was the first for Unifor in a two-year stretch of negotiations for more than a dozen collective agreements with the major grocers. The union has said it hopes the Metro deal will help set a precedent for those upcoming talks.