Last Updated on July 25, 2024 by YGK News Staff
LCBO employees represented by Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU)Â are back to work as of Tuesday morning after ratifying a collective agreement over the weekend.
Speaking to reporters on Monday, Ford blamed the two week strike on OPSEU’s unwillingness to return to the table, and said Ontario doesn’t take kindly to compromising their ability to get booze.
“We learned many things with this strike — people were still able to get their alcohol,” Ford said.Â
“Don’t mess around with people’s booze in Ontario, because they aren’t too happy.”
Cameron Pardy, OPSEU Local 497 LBED President, says while maybe sentiments have been different in other parts of Ontario where Doug Ford has spoken to people, he hasn’t gotten the sense that people local to Kingston have been in any way resentful towards LCBO employees.
Generally, he says striking workers felt very supported by the public.
“I think it may have been slightly embellished unless he’s getting a lot of responses from different geographical areas of Ontario,” Pardy said.
“In the Kingston area or in the surrounding area… every time that I talked to any public members it didn’t seem to me like they were really pushing for the privatization of the LCBO… I think that they have other priorities on mind like family doctors and so on.”
Pardy says he feels like coming into this strike, a lot of Ontarians didn’t really realize the impact LCBO sales have on Ontario’s public funds – and said that if there’s a positive from these difficult two weeks, it’s that more people see them as holding an important role in Ontario.
He says he believes people value the public funds reinvested into Ontario more than they do the convenience of expanded alcohol access.
“I would say it was a pivotal moment for the LCBO strike to have to educate the public on where the funds go so that they understood that if it ever was privatized, unfortunately, a lot of those revenues or profits go into the CEO or the owners of the chains,” Pardy said.
“100%Â of the revenue that comes through the LCBO, or profits, go back in Ontario. I don’t even know a percentage I could throw out there that would go into the CEO’s pockets of those stores.”
On Tuesday he said that employees and customers alike were happy to be back shopping at the LCBO.
The new collective agreement, backdated to April of this year, includes a number of improvements for LCBO employees including the conversion of 1,000 casual positions to part-time permanent positions, wage increases of 8 percent over three years, benefit and severance improvements, a guarantee of no store closures throughout the term of the agreement and a cap on the number of agency stores, and most importantly for the union – a stated commitment to a future where “the LCBO, and its revenues, continue to grow Ontario”.
JP Hornick, President of OPSEU/SEFPO, said in a release that while there’s been some victories in this collective agreement – the expectation is there will still be a fight ahead if Doug Ford manages to remain at the helm of the Ontario government.
“OPSEU/SEFPO is a fighting union, and this fight is far from over,” Hornick said.
I am incredibly proud of the power that LCBO workers have built, and they know how to use that power moving forward. Luckily, Ontario voters are also on our side – Ford’s own polling shows it.”
Pardy said when it comes to Kingston, he and fellow employees have so much gratitude for the support shown by the community.
He says they were offered support from so many businesses and individuals that it was hard to keep count.
“We had so many local restaurants local businesses come and offer donations, offer food everyday, and it was just incredible to see that kind of support from the Kingston community,” Pardy said.
“When I started adding up all the different community businesses, we were well into the hundreds of businesses that helped us out on the line… We all know who they were so we will promise to spread the word around how grateful we are.”
Details of the collective agreement have not yet been publicly shared by OPSEU, the LCBO, or the provincial government, but it will be in place for three years before expiring at the conclusion March 31, 2027.