SAQ employees strike

Around 5,000 employees from the Société des alcools du Québec (SAQ) are on strike Thursday, after their union denounced their employer’s salary proposal in the ongoing negotiations.

The SAQ Store and Office Employees Union, affiliated with the CSN, confirmed that its members will be on strike. On Facebook, they asked its members not to cross the picket lines.

The union is entitled to 15 strike days. Two days were used in April, so Thursday’s strike will be the third to be used under the mandate.

During the two strike days in April, the SAQ maintained “limited access” to its branches.

The collective agreement for SAQ employees expired on March 31, 2023.

According to the union, the “normative” part of the negotiations was settled last week. However, the union says it feels “cheated” by the salary offers and the financial framework that were submitted last Wednesday by the employer.

In their view, the financial framework would force employees to accept cuts in overtime pay and a reduction in the employer’s contribution to health insurance, among other things.

“I think that we’ve accomplished quite a bit of what we were aiming for, but it was very hard,” said SAQ union member Liam Belcourt. “I just feel like we’ve convinced them in exchange for certain things to accept what we were asking for, but I don’t think that we’re truly valued in their eyes at this point in time, not yet.”

Currently, employees must wait seven years to be eligible for insurance coverage and they want to reduce this period to five years and are also demanding dental care coverage.

“For two years, we have been told that, regarding each request that could have a financial impact, we would discuss it after having settled the normative clauses. However, here we are,” said the union’s president, Lisa Courtemanche, in a press release. “Except that the employer submitted their financial offer to us and made conditions where we had to accept all the setbacks they demanded, while withdrawing each of our requests. It just doesn’t make sense.”

Their employer is offering a 16.5 per cent pay increase over six years but the union argues that this offer is lower than the 17.4 per cent increase over five years that was given to public sector workers.

After reading the proposal last Friday, the union’s executive committee called on members to be ready for the upcoming stages of the mobilization.

“Costco’s makes more money than we do. They get paid $2 more on the weekend. They get paid in the evenings. Just like in hospitals, you work on Sunday and you’re going to get $5 more. The SAQ’s have express stores that are open until 10 p.m. and nobody wants to work there. So, people modify their availability so that they’re not put on the schedule because it’s not interesting to work at 10 p.m. for the conditions. You can go work anywhere for about the same salary with more stability,” explained Belcourt.

Courtemanche and CSN Vice-President François Enault will hold a press conference in Montreal on Thursday morning at 11 a.m. in front of the Jean-Talon market branch in Montreal to provide an update on the negotiations.

“At the SAQ, nearly 70 per cent of employees work part-time and on call,” said Enault in a press release. “It takes 12 years before you get a regular position. There is no company in Quebec whose business model relies so much on the precariousness of its staff. It is entirely legitimate to want to ensure a minimum of stable positions and to limit the use of part-time work.”

In response, the SAQ said that a second meeting is scheduled on Friday with the union, and they hope to reach an agreement.

“We would like to stress that we have made good progress in recent weeks and that we have reached an agreement on the entire regulatory aspect,” reads a statement from the SAQ. “Last week, we began negotiations on the monetary aspect with the submission of an initial salary offer. Since the beginning of these negotiations, our goal has been to reach an agreement that is satisfactory to both the SAQ and our employees. These negotiations have been going on for 21 months now and it is time for them to be settled, for the benefit of our employees and our customers.”

Some branches will remain open today, and customers can check on the website before heading to the store.

“20 years ago, when you were hired by the SAQ, you know, it was a job that was valued in Quebec. It was a job that many people wanted to have, and now it’s just another job at the grocery store. And there’s a really high turnover. We wanted to bring back that feeling of being valued in our work environment,” said Belcourt.

-With files from La Presse Canadienne