As inflation grows, this union leader says workers have an appetite to fight for higher pay

As inflation rises and grocery chains continue to reap massive profits, one union leader is arguing for new legislation to help employees keep up with the cost of living — and says workers these days have developed an appetite for organizing not seen in years.

Newfoundlander Lana Payne became the first woman elected as national president of Unifor in 2022.

She sat down with CBC Radio's CBC Newfoundland Morning to chat about her plans for the union in the upcoming year.

The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: We are seeing a lot of positions unfilled and a lot of people saying they can't get anyone to work. What are some of the reasons for that, that you're hoping to address this year?

A: Well, we still have a five per cent unemployment rate in Canada. Some of this is partially maybe a skills shortage, where we have to do a better job at matching the skills with the jobs that are there, but also employers are going to have to realize that the labour market has changed profoundly in Canada.

Some of it is related, obviously, to our demographic, and these are things that we knew were coming at us for a long period of time, as the population has aged and the labour force numbers of the people that are in that working age group, started to decline. And what we saw during the pandemic was quite a number of people potentially leaving the labour force a little earlier than planned.

But the pandemic made folks go, "Hey, I can actually do this," and so you saw some retirements across the board there. And we would have seen smaller immigration though that period. So all of these things contributed to a bit of a tightening labour market. Which really gives working people some rights now, particularly if you have a union, to do some collective bargaining with your employer.

What we saw all in 2022 was an ability to push hard at bargaining tables and make a big difference for workers in many sectors.

As you probably noticed [in some sectors], corporate profits across 2022 were the healthiest that they have been. They were at historic highs at one point, during the second quarter.… They were a full 24 per cent of our GDP.

What do workers want when it comes to unionization? Are we seeing a push toward people who previously didn't have a union looking for one?

I think that there's a moment in time here that is reflected in people joining unions or creating their own unions. This is happening across North America and in places where you would have probably had low union density, whether it's in retail or the hospitality sector.

For us, as well, what I have seen with respect to collective bargaining and what workers are pushing for is better wages and trying to get rid of two-tier collective agreements. 

We've got about 80,000 Unifor members that will be going to the bargaining table this year in over 500 collective agreements, in some pretty significant sectors. Supermarket workers, for example, in Metro stores here in Ontario, but also Dominion stores in Newfoundland and Labrador, and the auto sector will be at the bargaining table. We'll have energy workers at the bargaining table.

It's going to be a very interesting year in terms of meeting those expectations of workers, while at the same time the pressure from the Bank of Canada with rapid interest rate hikes potentially pushing the economy and society into a recession. 

We saw during the early days of the pandemic places like supermarkets giving these workers extra pay. Then those extra wages were rolled back. What are you expecting from employers in terms of pushback in 2023?

We have already seen [that] play out at the bargaining table. People did not get this pandemic pay for very long and were still reporting to work and suffering through massive outbreaks in many of their workplaces. So what we saw is then, when these workers and these bargaining units finally got to the bargaining table, there was incredible pressure applied for them, by them, and in many cases winning back that pandemic pay.

We had 31 disputes in 2022 in Unifor. To give you a sense of how big that is, the previous record was 21 in a year, so it really does give us a sense of the mood of our members, but also the fact that workers realize their value. 

Also, they need to catch up here for what is a period of lost income. I mean, in many cases you would have had the last couple of decades, workers were not keeping pace with inflation and even in 2022, I think we were looking at average wage increases of about 4.4 per cent. Inflation, I think, averaged out to 6.8 per cent.

So even with some of the significant moves that we've been able to make at the bargaining tables, workers are still behind. That is going to spill over this year as well, in 2023. I don't see this mood changing any time soon.

What's it doing to workers' morale when the employers, especially some of these big grocery chains, and companies who have been making record profits, say, 'OK, we are doing really good but we are not going to give you your share'?

If I was a grocery baron in this environment right now, my advice to them would be not to come to the bargaining table with that attitude, because workers do understand their value. 

They do understand what they did throughout the pandemic.… They read the business pages like the rest of us, and you know grocery stores and supermarket chains have done extremely, extremely well. You've heard the term "profiteering." I think Loblaws in 16 weeks, in just one 16-week period in 2022, had a net profit of $560-580 million. These are folks that can afford to pay more to improve the quality of work in these places, and I can guarantee you that those will be the kind of demands workers will be coming forward with this year.

Pay, of course, is one of the most vital components of any negotiation, but what are other things that workers are looking for in terms of on-site child care, paid sick days and things like that?

Yeah, we are tabling paid sick days in a lot of sectors and locations. Particularly in agreements where there might not have been any, that continues to be a priority. 

It is also a political priority for us as a union. I think it was Dec. 1 we finally got 10 paid sick days in the federal regulated sectors. We gave about a million workers coverage by that regulatory change.

But the reality is that we have millions and millions of Canadian workers who are covered by provincial jurisdiction. Our goal here is to make sure provincial labour codes also have paid sick days in them. Some do. Most of them are inadequate. What we're doing as a union on top of that is making them a priority at bargaining, as well.

I would say outside of wages, retirement security is definitely one for many sectors we've seen in 2022. In some cases we've seen improvements to define benefit pension plans, that's something that we haven't seen for a long period of time. 

The wealth gap in our country continues to grow. What role can unions play going forward to say, 'You know what, this has to change'?

Stepping up and making sure that unions are organizing, because this is an organizing moment.

The political agenda that Unifor and others will be pushing forward [is] talking about what the minimum wage needs to be again. It's falling behind dramatically in many provinces.

And improving labour codes both federally and provincially this year, so that we will have anti-scab legislation in the federal jurisdiction. 

I also believe firmly that we have to look at things like legislation so that more people can join unions. It's still really tough to join a union in some jurisdictions in Canada.

And finally I think it's important to push for what's referred to as sectorial bargaining, which means enabling working people in sectors where you don't have great union density, whether it's retail or other places.

I think we need to look and re-examine what's happening with very important programs that are what I would call great equalizers in Canada, like health care and how we fund education. The things that we make sure that everybody can avail of. 

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