Canadian Walmart Workers Make History: A Union Contract…
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Canadian Walmart Workers Make History: A Union Contract
Eight hundred workers at a Walmart distribution center in Mississauga, Ontario, succeeded where others have not: they are now working under a two-year contract with North America’s largest logistics giant.
The landmark collective bargaining agreement went into effect on July 1, nearly two years after workers won union representation https://labornotes.org/2024/10/walmart-warehouse-workers-win-first-union-canada , oining Unifor Local 252, motivated by low wages and unsafe working conditions.
As punishment two years ago, Walmart bumped https://www.walmartcanada.ca/news/2024/09/25/walmart-canada-announces-additional--92m-wage-investment-for-fro he pay of every logistics worker in Canada—except those who unionized. This was an effective maneuver to halt further union drives.
“Walmart gave all the wage increases to all the non-union folks, and everything fell apart,” said Angela Drew Kimelman, a Unifor organizer who worked on organizing campaigns at multiple warehouses, including one in Cornwall, near Montreal.
But now, the new contract prevents Walmart from raising wages at other warehouses without doing the same at this one. The unionized workers have received a matching raise, and back pay for the months when other warehouse workers received raises that they didn’t.
Unifor has restarted its organizing efforts at other Ontario warehouses.
# WHY WALMART GAVE IN
In past union drives, Walmart has closed facilities rather than deal with a union. So far, no such threat has emerged for this warehouse.
Ontario’s labor laws helped. The law https://www.ontario.ca/page/collective-bargaining#section-3 ludes a conciliation process for first contracts. First there’s mediation, and then disputes can move to settlement through arbitration. Unifor’s lead negotiator, Fields, filed the paperwork to move that process forward, which started an external clock that pressured Walmart to settle.
Geography also helped. Labor scholar Benjamin Fong argues https://phenomenalworld.org/analysis/walmart-concedes-to-the-union/ would be “a huge pain for Walmart” to relocate this regional distribution center, which serves most of Ontario and Quebec, because the area is hemmed in by the Great Lakes and the layout of Toronto. Walmart already closed its distribution centers in Quebec, which has even stronger labor laws.
Walmart worker Simon Hayford thinks the company settled because executives were worried about more warehouses joining the union, and they didn’t want to draw more attention to the unionized one. He and Pilozo have been participating in Unifor’s efforts to organize other Walmart warehouses. itinctj
Eight hundred workers at a Walmart distribution center in Mississauga, Ontario, succeeded where others have not: they are now working under a two-year contract with North America’s largest logistics giant.
The landmark collective bargaining agreement went into effect on July 1, nearly two years after workers won union representation https://labornotes.org/2024/10/walmart-warehouse-workers-win-first-union-canada , oining Unifor Local 252, motivated by low wages and unsafe working conditions.
As punishment two years ago, Walmart bumped https://www.walmartcanada.ca/news/2024/09/25/walmart-canada-announces-additional--92m-wage-investment-for-fro he pay of every logistics worker in Canada—except those who unionized. This was an effective maneuver to halt further union drives.
“Walmart gave all the wage increases to all the non-union folks, and everything fell apart,” said Angela Drew Kimelman, a Unifor organizer who worked on organizing campaigns at multiple warehouses, including one in Cornwall, near Montreal.
But now, the new contract prevents Walmart from raising wages at other warehouses without doing the same at this one. The unionized workers have received a matching raise, and back pay for the months when other warehouse workers received raises that they didn’t.
Unifor has restarted its organizing efforts at other Ontario warehouses.
# WHY WALMART GAVE IN
In past union drives, Walmart has closed facilities rather than deal with a union. So far, no such threat has emerged for this warehouse.
Ontario’s labor laws helped. The law https://www.ontario.ca/page/collective-bargaining#section-3 ludes a conciliation process for first contracts. First there’s mediation, and then disputes can move to settlement through arbitration. Unifor’s lead negotiator, Fields, filed the paperwork to move that process forward, which started an external clock that pressured Walmart to settle.
Geography also helped. Labor scholar Benjamin Fong argues https://phenomenalworld.org/analysis/walmart-concedes-to-the-union/ would be “a huge pain for Walmart” to relocate this regional distribution center, which serves most of Ontario and Quebec, because the area is hemmed in by the Great Lakes and the layout of Toronto. Walmart already closed its distribution centers in Quebec, which has even stronger labor laws.
Walmart worker Simon Hayford thinks the company settled because executives were worried about more warehouses joining the union, and they didn’t want to draw more attention to the unionized one. He and Pilozo have been participating in Unifor’s efforts to organize other Walmart warehouses. itinctj
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