Grocery Workers Talk Poverty Wages and Pandemic Profits

By Michelle Paquette and Doug Yearwood, YCL-LJC members in Ottawa

This article was originally published in Rank and File

After large private sector grocery retailers introduced pay increases for frontline workers, Herb & Spice—a locally owned and operated grocery store in Ottawa— announced that its employees would receive a $1.50/hour hazard pay increase. Unlike other grocery stores who have committed to maintaining the pay increase until the pandemic subsides, this employer is only delivering hazard pay for a single pay period.

Baristas of the world, unite!

By Kimball Cariou

Baristas are starting to organize in Nova Scotia, and fast food workers have become increasingly militant in the United States. These two developments are linked to the efforts by big corporations to squeeze out maximum profits, at the expense of the huge service industry workforce in North America.

The recent Nova Scotia case has drawn considerable media attention, after Halifax employees at the Just Us! coffee cooperative chain joined Local 2 of the Service Employees International Union. The chain says that any new shops that open will be unionized.

This is not the same as organizing a big transnational food company. Just Us! Co‑op set out in 1995 "to become Canada's first Fair Trade coffee roaster... a small, but bold experiment to show that the coffee business, and all businesses, could be done differently, putting `People and the Planet before Profits' locally and globally."

Even so, it took a sharp struggle to make this breakthrough. Last April, two Just Us! employees who went to the Labour Board claiming that they were fired for their union activities. Putting "people before profits" apparently did not immediately extend to front line employees, as sometimes happens in cooperatives.

On a larger scale, workers at two Second Cup cafes, a large cross-Canada chain, voted recently on whether to unionize. The results of that vote have not yet been released.

How large is this sector? In the United States, 11 million people are employed in the food service industry, with about 1.1 million here in Canada - or about 6% of the total workforce.

But working conditions and incomes in this sector lag far behind the average, largely because few food service workers are organized. There are important exceptions, of course, such as many employees at arenas in the major cities. However, these unionized workers are often employed only irregularly; at Rogers Arena, where the Vancouver Canucks play, hundreds of part-time workers operate concession stands, but only for five or six hours during each of 40-50 home games per year, plus the occasional concert event.

Statistics Canada reports that employees in the accommodations and food services sector are paid an average of about $16 per hour (compared to $24 for the entire workforce), with weekly incomes of about $370. In other words, a typical working week is between 20 and 25 hours. Take-home pay works out to less than $19,000 per year, forcing most to find other low-paid jobs to make ends meet.

The trend is similar in the United States, or perhaps even worse. U.S. food service workers average about $10.20 per hour, with total annual earnings of $20,000 for those employed full time. In both countries, about three-quarters of this workforce are women, and disproportionately come from racialised communities.

As the costs of housing, food, transportation and other necessities soar, workers in these jobs find it harder and harder to survive. And as the capitalist economic crisis continues, other employment options have become even less available.

This is certainly true for coffee shop workers. Traditionally - or at least since this sector boomed in the 1980s - many baristas have been students, pouring espressos and lattes part-time to help pay for tuition and living expenses. Starbucks and other chains and independent outlets were happy to hire students, relying on a relatively cheap workforce that turns over regularly.

That pattern began to change in the 1990s, when baristas started to organize for better pay and hours. One of the outstanding examples was in Vancouver, where 150 employees at twelve Starbucks franchises joined the Canadian Auto Workers. The CAW won some improvements in job language and shift scheduling thanks to an organizing drive in 1996.

But the company resisted changes in wages or benefits at the unionized stores. Starbucks employed classic employer techniques, stalling negotiations while cutting down the hours of pro-union workers, or finding excuses to replace them with new employees. The CAW fought back with an "un-strike" and other creative tactics, but by 2007 the union was decertified at its seven remaining outlets.

At the time, the CAW said Starbucks never had any interest in trying to work with the union. High staff turnover rates affected union strength, as many pro-union workers ended up leaving after a year or two. Even so, the union considered Starbucks a "pretty good employer" by the "abysmal" standards of the service sector. But "when you look at their profitability, they could actually pay their people a living wage and still make money but they don't do that," a CAW representative said.

Today, of the 80,000 workers employed directly by Starbucks worldwide, fewer than 130 are currently union members.

Will the Second Cup and Just Us! baristas launch a significant change in the food services industry? Time will tell, but clearly, their success could have a huge positive impact for twelve million workers and their families across the continent.

Fast food workers strike actions demand $15/h, expose poverty wages crisis

Fast food and retail workers in 60 or more cities, towns and suburbs and reportedly 1000 stores across the United States rallied in strike actions and job site disruptions all-day yesterday starting as early as 6am. The strikes marked the largest protests so far in a 10-month campaign that is gaining momentum after it began with 200 workers striking at a restaurant in New York last November, and spread to Detroit, Chicago, LA and elsewhere this summer.

The walkouts and protest actions, which can be followed on twitter via the tag #825strike, also struck at a number of cities in the notoriously anti-union and low-wage southern US. The organizers, a coalition of fast food workers, labour, community and church groups -- some of whom are mobilizing under the banner of 'Fast Food Forward' -- called for the right to organize a union as well as a boost in the minimum wage to $15 an hour.

The fast food worker's mobilization is likely the largest in US history.

While most of the strike actions and protests occurred at fast food chain stores, retail outlets like Macy's, Sears and Victoria's Secret also saw protests.  In a number of cities, entire businesses were effectively shut-down for the day.  More protests are planned later this year, according to the Service Employees International Union, SEIU.

Billions in profit

Commentators said the strikes showed "great anger" among people about income inequality in the US. This is a "march on corporate America" one organizer was quoted as saying on the news site PeoplesWorld.org

Literally millions of US fast food and retail workers are struggling to get by on just ''starvation wages,'' according to the protest organizers, who pointed to the fact that the top eight US fast-food chains — McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Burger King, Taco Bell, KFC, Pizza Hut, Domino’s and Papa John’s — made a gargantuan $7.35 billion in profit last year, while most of their employees, however, took less than $11,300.

Los Angeles fast food workers, for example, make a median wage of $9 an hour or just $11,232 annually according to studies. Factoring in living costs, an adult with one child would need need to make $23.53 an hour -- full-time -- to afford the basics in Los Angeles, according to an online living-wage calculator by MIT. 

"[M]ore than 25% of [fast food workers] are parents who can’t afford school supplies if they have to buy school shoes," said an open letter to fast food companies from the group LowPayIsNotOk.org  A significant number of fast food workers are African America, Latino, or from immigrant communities.

US President Barack Obama is floating the idea of a federal minimum wage of at least $9 an hour, while the Congressional Democrats are discussing a $10.10 proposal. Current US federal minimum wage is set at $7.25.

Raise or just keeping pace?

Some commentators note that the workers are, arguably, not calling for a raise but to stop going backwards on the pay scale. 

"If the minimum wage had kept pace with inflation over the past 50 years, it would be about $10 an hour today; if it had kept pace with the growth in average labor productivity, it would be about $17 an hour," the New York Times noted in an August 7th editorial.

"Americans are increasingly unable to make a living at their jobs. They work harder and are paid less than workers in other advanced countries," the NYT said, adding that "low-paid work in America is lower paid today than at any time in modern memory."

Feeling of resistance

Some news reports said the actions had an "Occupy atmosphere," while the LA Times described "fast-food workers and supporters" outside a South Los Angeles Burger King at 6 a.m., "chanting their demand for a $15-an-hour minimum wage" and "holding signs with slogans such as 'Burgers and Lies,' 'Yo Quiero $15,' and 'Lovin' a Living Wage'" 

The workers "began moving into formation before sunrise, headlights speeding by on the 110 Freeway behind the restaurant in the Brodway-Manchester neighborhood. As the sun slowly rose and honks from passing passing cars increased, the employees and protest organizers from the Service Employees International Union, many decked out in “Fight For 15” T-shirts, snaked around the corner at Broadway and Century Boulevard."

The Young Communist League of Canada expressed its full support for the demonstrations and actions in the US, noting that these kinds of actions were needed in the fightback for a higher minimum wage across Canada. The YCL Canada calls for a $19 an hour Federal minimum wage.

Some fast food facts:

What are they demanding:   $15 (U.S.) an hour

Current US federal minimum wage:   $7.25

What that is as an annual salary:   less than $15,000 a year

Median wage for US fast-food workers:  $8.94 per hour

Percent of fast-food workers over 20:  70 - 88 % (estimates vary)

Average age of US fast-food workers: 35

In their own words:

“Sometimes my phone will go out because that isn’t a priority. Giving my kids a roof over their heads is.”  -- Sharise Stitt, Taco Bell worker, Detroit

"They work harder than the billionaires in this city." -- Ryan Carter, New York

"I know I'm risking my job, but it's my right to fight for what I deserve." -- Julio Wilson, Little Caesars worker in Raleigh North Carolina

"The bottom line is we are doing this to let the corporations know we want $15 an hour, better working conditions — and we want to be treated fairly. " -- Rev. W.J. Rideout, All God's People Church, Detroit

"These strikes and these movements, they're not just for us. They're for another generation of those who won't be able to survive in this economy."  -- Tamara Green, Burger King worker in Brooklyn, New York

[This was] "theatre orchestrated by organised labor, for organized labour [...] Retail and restaurant jobs are good jobs, held by millions of working men and women, who are proud of what they do for their customers and the communities they serve across America. The planned walkout is the result of a multi-year effort by big labor to diminish and disparage these hard-working Americans by attacking the companies they work for."  -- The National Retail Federation of America.

With files from the Associated Press, Globe and Mail, The Guardian, Vancouver Sun, Huffington Post, Toronto Star, LA Times, USA Today, Peoples World, and the New York Times

Another salvo in the war on unions

Reprinted from The Morning Star
Tim Pelzer

The right-wing Conservative government of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has launched yet another assault on working people in Canada with legislation that, if passed, will make it harder to organize trade unions and easier to decertify established ones.

Conservative Member of Parliament Blaine Calkins has introduced Bill C-525 that, under the guise of giving workers a choice of whether to join a union, will remove the automatic card-check certification in the federally-regulated sector (telecommunications, banking, transportation, etc.). For decades, union certification under the Canada Labor Code has allowed a majority (50 percent +1) of the members of a workforce to sign membership cards and pay $5 to certify a union. In its place, Bill C-525 will require that 45 percent of a bargaining unit sign union cards followed by a Labor Board-supervised secret-ballot vote. More than 50 percent of the bargaining unit must vote in favor of establishing a union, instead of 50 percent of those who vote. Those who don't vote or could not vote are counted as negative votes. No provincial labor code has this type of provision.

"There are good reasons why the card-check model has been practiced in federally regulated sectors," according to Dave Cole, president of the Energy, Communications, and Paperworkers' Union of Canada.

"For one," he said, "it can be difficult to organize votes for bargaining units spread across the country and transport sector employees are regularly in different places. More importantly, the card-check process protects workers from intimidation. It's widely understood - confirmed by many academic studies - that secret-ballot workplace votes reduce union certification as they give employers an opportunity to intimidate employees through compulsory anti-union meetings and implicit threats of job loss."

Bill C-525 will also allow a minority to constantly threaten a union with decertification. If 45 percent of a union bargaining unit asks for decertification, a Labor Board supervised vote will be held. More than 50 percent of the bargaining unit must vote in favor of the union as its continued bargaining unit, instead of a majority of those voting. Those who don't want to vote or could not vote are effectively deemed to have voted against unionization.

"Bill C-525 needs to be seen in the context of the government's low-wage strategy. It's the latest step in the Conservatives' bid to reduce workers' power to the benefit of the business class", asserted Cole.

The president of the Canadian Auto Workers, Ken Lewenza, pointed out, "If this same distorted standard of democracy were applied to federal Members of Parliament, there would not be a single Conservative member sitting in the House of Commons today. There is no MP in Canada who was elected by over 50 percent of the voting-age adults in their riding. Why on earth should this test apply to unions, but not MPs?"

Blaine Calkins did not respond to email requests for an interview about Bill C-525.

Bill C-525 is currently being scrutinized by parliamentary committees and then will be voted on later this fall. The Harper Conservative government holds a majority of seats in Parliament and has enough votes to pass the bill.

Critics charge that Merit Canada, an employer lobby group which is pushing to end unionization in the construction field, is behind Bill C-525. Merit is believed to have strong ties to the Conservative Party and Prime Minister Stephen Harper's office.

Bill C-525, part of a larger crackdown on unions, comes on the heels of another Conservative anti-union effort which was defeated in a 49-33 vote in the Senate on June 26. Bill C-377 would have required that unions make public all donations over $5,000 to groups and individuals as well as salaries over $100,000. Unions would have had to submit 24 different detailed statements of expenses and offer this information on a website. Failure to do so would have lead to a $1,000 fine each day. Sixteen Conservative senators voted against Bill C-377 while six abstained. Critics charged that Bill C-377 was designed to tie unions in red tape and was discriminatory because it did not apply to business.

The forthcoming Conservative Party convention will debate a series of resolutions that would effectively eliminate unions' financial security. One proposal explicitly calls for U.S.-style "right to work" legislation to allow optional union membership.

Support BC Teachers: Fight Bill 22!

Statement of YCL BC Provincial Committee

The BC Liberals have proposed legislation that would send BC’s teachers back to work without collective bargaining or the right to strike. This legislation, called Bill 22, threatens the democratic rights of all workers in BC. The Young Communist League of Canada BC Provincial Committee condemns Bill 22 for seeking to terminate the basic rights of working people to bargain collectively and to strike.

Teachers are seeking improvements to public education such as smaller classes and more resources for special needs students. , Under the cynical slogan of “Families First”, The BC Liberals are attacking teachers through slander and threats. In the process, they are aggravating the problems with BC’s public school system and hindering the students who depend upon it for their education. Bill 22 uses a “cooling off period” and sham “mediation” as tools in the Liberal’s ongoing union busting efforts. Violations of the imposed restrictions being placed on teachers’ right to strike will result in millions of dollars in fines, a clearly punitive action on the part of a government.

The Young Communist League supports the struggle of the BC Teachers’ Federation and the efforts of the BC Federation of Labour, local labour councils, and others to stand strong against this anti-democratic, anti-worker legislation. We also applaud the impressive and inspiring actions of BC high school students in staging walkouts and rallying to support high quality public education.

The alternative to high quality public education is private education. The spread of private schools would mean a two-tier education system. One tier of high quality education for those who can pay the high cost of tuition fees, and another insufficiently funded tier for the majority of British Columbians.

The BC Liberal government’s time in power has been disastrous for working people, youth, and students in this province. This is the government of big business carrying out the interests of the socio-economic class they represent.

The attack on unions and on public services is part of the broader offensive on working peoples’ working conditions and living standards aimed at saving the capitalist system its current crisis by making working people pay for a situation they did not create. Youth and students should fight to stop Bill 22, to defeat the Liberal government, and ultimately to replace the capitalist system with one in which working people themselves will set the priorities for our communities and teachers and students will be valued, not criminalized and demonized. We call that system socialism.

An Assault on Collective Bargaining, a Degradation of Justice and an Attack on Youth

Statement of the Communist Party, British Columbia

The Communist Party condemns Bill 22 as an assault on Collective bargaining, a degradation of the judicial system and a threat to democracy in British Columbia. In one stroke this failed and doomed Liberal government has violated the right to negotiate, to withdraw labour, and to exercise the franchise of citizenship in a democratic society. They have changed the meaning of the word “mediate” to “enforcement” and degraded the numerous court victories of the BC Teachers with legislation that is in opposition to the Teachers, the Court decisions, their own Labour Board, any sense of human decency and most important of all the quality of life and education of BC children. Twice the Supreme Court has ruled anti-worker legislation of this government illegal.

Corporate runaways can’t trump the greater good

Protesting: Workers at IQT Solutions were suddenly jobless and denied their final paycheques when the company abruptly closed its doors. More and more young workers are employed at call centers. Photo by the Toronto Star.

By Ken Lewenza

Reprinted from the Toronto Star

The abrupt closure of three IQT call-centre operations in Oshawa, Trois-Rivières and Laval has left 1,200 workers reeling, and government agencies scratching their heads. How can a company (in this case a multi-million dollar, multi-national telecommunications contractor) simply pack up and leave, literally overnight? How can they walk away from legal obligations, washing their hands of back pay and severance? Seriously, how?

Weeks have gone by but no one, as of yet, has any real answers to these questions.

Governments appear incapable of even tracking down basic information about the company, who’s in charge and whether or not they’re actually bankrupt.

There’s an assumption among Canadians that there must be rules and regulations holding corporations to account. But this latest fiasco is a rude awakening.

Indeed, we’ve seen this storyline many times before. In 2009, 2,400 non-union auto parts workers at Progressive Moulded Products (PMP) in Toronto faced a similar ordeal — returning from vacation only to learn that their employer had fled town, taking their separation payments with them. CAW members have seen it first-hand, too, at companies like Collins & Aikman in Scarborough, Aradco and Aramco in Windsor, and others.

Each case prompted a public outcry and a spontaneous fight back. Workers demanded what was legally owed to them. But after fighting long and hard, they inevitably end up with less than they are owed.

So IQT is not the first company to successfully exploit this effective loophole in the regulations that govern business. And it won’t be the last — unless we tighten up the rules.

In this era of deregulation, it seems private companies are enabled to padlock their doors, pack their bags and take their business elsewhere. The same week as the IQT closures in Canada, the company announced 900 new jobs in Nashville, Tennessee — taking advantage of millions in lucrative public incentives to relocate. Those plans were scrapped when municipal leaders in Nashville caught wind of the company’s disregard for workers and their communities. Yet Canadian officials seem toothless when it comes to tracking down the company and enforcing its legal obligations.

To its credit, Ontario’s labour ministry is in the midst of an investigation while providing retraining and job search assistance to workers through a newly-opened action centre. Quebec officials are urging displaced workers to lodge individual complaints with the labour board in the hopes of building a file on the company.

Meanwhile, Ottawa has been strangely silent about the case, telling workers only that they can file for EI. IQT workers don’t yet qualify for federal Wage Earner Protection Program funds since there’s not been an official bankruptcy filed. So far, no one in the Harper government cares to comment.

For years, governments have been watering down corporate regulations, all in the name of fighting “red tape.” Restrictions on corporations that would protect the greater good, we’ve been told, are job-killers. Establishing criteria to govern corporate behaviour is considered a barrier to investment.

But this whole approach puts reckless multinational corporations like IQT in the driver’s seat, and leaves vulnerable workers in the dust.

It’s time we stopped this trend, which is justified by an underlying faith that the private sector is always efficient. Governments need the tools to hold corporate deadbeats to account, to discourage imitators and adequately remedy situations like the tragedy at IQT. Efficient, effective regulatory tools wouldn’t disadvantage good corporate citizens, but would offer some protection for workers’ rights.

A public discussion on the need for better worker protection regulations is both necessary and overdue. We need an open and honest dialogue among stakeholders, to get some new ideas on the table.

Here are some proposals to throw into the mix:

 • Establish clear protocols for public notice and justification of lay-offs.

 • Enhance protections that prioritize monies owed to workers in cases of bankruptcy and bankruptcy protection proceedings.

 • Strong workplace closure legislation, with special provisions to account for non-industrial, non-capital intensive workplaces like call centres and retail shops (where there’s little capital equipment that can be seized and sold to pay outstanding debts).

 • Strengthen legal reprisals for executives (or other representatives) of runaway corporations.

 • Increase the funds covered by the wage protection system and extend its reach to closures that are not formal bankruptcies.

It is both immoral and economically counterproductive to allow deadbeat corporations like IQT to commit these wrongs with impunity. As a society, we must take a hard line with employers who think they’re beyond the greater good.

Ken Lewenza is president of CAW-Canada.

RY Interviews David Jacks Part 1

This is part one of a very extensive interview done last September by Rebel Youth Magazine.

We are posting it here on the blog to supplement the print edition's publication of RY's interview with a spokesperson for ASSE, a student union federation in the nation of Quebec.

Note that the grammar is not up to par. This is due to trying to keep the transcription as close as possible to the audio recording.

We entered the Lo Pub. It was dimly lit and not too many patrons were in it at that hour. Seemed cozy enough. Some rock and top 40 music played in the background. We ordered a round of draft beer and sat in the corner. “Help yourself to some cheese bread” David Jacks says. All I had brought with me was a red Lloyds tape recorder, masking tape holding the batteries in. I'll point out now that for a man who is smiling and cheerful every time I see him, a columnist at the Winnipeg Sun has labeled him “Mr. Grumpy Pants” last autumn. WTF is up with that !?

Story of Organizing a Retail Giant

-reprint from Rebel Youth issue #2 (new series) 2006

We lost the battle, but
won a wage increase
across the country

illustration at right: radical graphics.org

By Johan Boyden

Last fall, a group of young workers, including several YCLers, tried valiantly to organize a union at the Staples Business Depot in Prince George BC. Although they lost the drive, they won a health and safety committee and higher wages for all Staples workers across Canada. Here’s the story.

“One of the most intense weeks
of my life.”

As Jason came into the staff meeting, he didn’t quite know what to expect. After they were organizing in secret for three months, the union drive had blown wide open. Now he was sitting with the rest of the captive audience, staring at a blown up black and white picture.

It was his photo. And he new exactly where
they’d got it.

A manger stood up. “We’d like to congratulate Jason,” he announced, “for running in the 2004 federal election... for the Communist Party.”

“The red-baiting only lasted for a day or two, but for those days,” Jason said, “nobody would talk, let alone make eye contact with each other. They were afraid. Everyone felt: ‘look what they did to this guy for speaking out, what will they do to me if I say something?”

The organizing committee wrote an open letter to management. “We went on the attack. We asked other workers in the letter if a person’s private life and political views was at all the business of the company and why were they getting involved researching associate’s backgrounds. More importantly we pointed out the real issue at hand. We were finally working together to get the respect we deserve and that Staples was trying to distract us from this fact. Their plan had backfired.”

In fact the other workers became more supportive. “The fear mongering actually worked against the managers, as we quickly signed up people who saw this was the kind of garbage we needed a union to protect us from in the first place.

A Race Against Lies
Staples Business Depot is the Canadian division of the giant American transnational, Staples Inc. With over 1680 superstores, it is one of the world’s largest office supply chains. In 2004 alone, sales hit $14.4 billion, profits increased 7.8%, and Staples “entered” nine new countries. Well aware of the link between profits, prices and wages, there is binder on union drive busting locked in the back office of every store. If that fails managers, they can call head office, where there is an entire department of lawyers and consultants ready to crush organizers.

After management’s first tactic back-fired, the corporate big-shots arrived. High paid district managers, lawyers and consultants flooded our otherwise quiet store. “It became a race,” Jason said. “The more time they had, the more lies and rumors they could get out. We made pamphlets and a web site explaining the issues and debunking rumors. We had to anticipate what they were going to say, and continue to press the key issues we were fighting for.”

Fighting for Dignity
Long before discovering the cameras monitoring them, the organizing committee (a group of five young men and women) had quietly talked with their co-workers about key issues. Guaranteed hours. Fairness. Schedules being on time and up to date. Ending favoritism.

There were also big health and safety concerns – like the joint health and safety committee, required by law, which at the time consisted only of a few managers and a few fictitious names of made up workers. The drive changed that. They challenged safety hazards like the forklift in receiving with a sticky throttle that could have run over someone. Organizes locked down the dangerous piece of equipment. Rather than repairing the machine, Staples turned it back on because the repair was 'too expensive’.

Management intimidated
Management intimidated workers, denied workers information, searched lockers and destroyed union pamphlets. They pulled staff into the office for two-on-one interrogations. On women on the organizing committee had to go through a two hour meeting and was threatened with termination because her pant hems were of different lengths.

We kept strong. We stood up to intimidation by organizing a comment card campaign asking workers in the community to tell Staples what they thought of intimidation of Staples employees. The response was overwhelming. We continued to have social events, pressed management on favoritism and work hours as well as attempted to diffuse their anti-union tactics.

“As one example, before a scheduled two hour meeting organized by management against the union, we handed out bingo like checklists of exactly what management would say.
Workers could avoid boredom at the meeting by checking off lies and rumors as they were mentioned by management to win prizes. The managers were so taken aback, that the two hour meeting abruptly ended after just 25 minutes.”

To buy some slack, Staples gave out a fifty-cent pay raise. “It wasn’t that large, but we pointed out: the second that we stop working together, [is] the second they will take it away”. Originally only Prince George workers got the raise, so the organizers asked the YCL to tell Staples workers across province about the union drive in Prince George and the raise. A few days latter the raise was extended across the province. “We said again: this is about the Union.” Staples extended the raise across Canada.

“One worker was
threatened with
termination because
her pant hems were
of different length.”

Eventually, however, Staples successfully pushed a wedge between full time and part time workers. With little solidarity between young and old, the drive stalled. Then Staples targeted the organizers until they all left the company.

Last Remarks
“I do think young organizers would be helpful to organize young people.” Jason says. “We first approached the UFCW. They suggested we shutdown our organizing committee so they could organize the store from the outside. CAW had a different approach, so our committee went with them.” But the organizer was in Vancouver; limited to what he could do. “We didn’t want to outstretch him,” Jason adds, “but its impossible to organize northern workers from a Vancouver office. The last time he contacted our committee was in September. We’d just fallen down from 60% to 40% of the workers signed.”

“We don’t know of any other attempt to organize a Staples in Canada,” Jason concludes. “We won a raise. Not much, but given their size, every penny raise represents tens of thousands of dollars for Staples. Sure we didn’t succeed – this time. But another drive will come again. It’s inevitable.”