Metro Inc. has asked a conciliation officer to step in and help it find a resolution to a strike by grocery store workers in Toronto, the grocer said Thursday.
But the union representing workers disagreedwith the company’s request,saying it’s waiting for Metro to bring a stronger wage offer to the table.
The move comes two and a half weeks in to the job action by Metro workers represented by Unifor at 27 stores across the Greater Toronto Area.
Either a union or an employer can apply to have a conciliation officer appointed to help them reach a collective agreement, according to Ontario’s Ministry of Labour.
The ministry appointed a conciliator at the beginning of bargaining at the request of both parties, said Metro spokeswoman Marie-Claude Bacon in a statement, and he has remained available throughout the process. Both the union and employer need to agree to have the officer step in.
“Metro has now asked for his assistance to help Metro and the union to find a resolution at the bargaining table,” she said.
However, Unifor declined the request.
“The path forward is clear — Metro needs to come back to the table with an improved wage offer that meets the needs of frontline grocery workers,” Unifor Local 414 president Gord Currie said in a statement.
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Around 3,700 workers rejected a tentative agreement recommended by their bargaining committee near the end of July and have been on strike ever since.
On Tuesday, Metro said Unifor refused a request over the weekend for the bargaining committees to meet again. However, the union responded that it was waiting for an acceptable offer from the grocer.
“This dispute is about wages — members have spoken loudly that they’ve watched their wages slowly erode over time, while this company turns out record profits, and they are demanding a fairer deal,” Currie said in a statement on Tuesday.
Unifor has said that Metro employees are asking for a fair share of the company’s profits, which rose in its latest quarter. Since the strike began, many workers have been saying they want to see their pandemic “hero pay” of $2 an hour be reinstated.
The tentative agreement reached by negotiators ahead of the strike included paid sick days for part-time workers, improvements in benefits and pensions, and significant wage increases, Bacon said on Tuesday. The wage bumps would see full-time and senior part-time employees get $3.75 more per hour by July 2026, she said.
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