Adedokun Waliyu 
Metro wants the Ministry of Labour to bring a government mediator to the table to help bring the nearly three-week-long workers’ strike to an end.
Twenty-seven Metro locations in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) have been closed since late July, when 3,700 grocery workers voted to reject a deal.
This follows a failed attempt over the weekend to restart negotiations, with the union saying it won’t budge until the grocer puts forward an acceptable offer.
“The Metro bargaining committee reached out to the union, Unifor, over the weekend to request a meeting with the employees’ bargaining committee, offering to meet as quickly as Sunday or Monday. The union has unfortunately refused,” said Marie-Claude Bacon, Metro’s Vice President of Public Affairs and Communications.
A Metro grocery store is seen in Toronto, Tuesday, July 18, 2023.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Cole Burston
“It’s the joint responsibility of Metro and the union to keep trying to negotiate an outcome at the bargaining table, particularly in a context where the parties had reached a very good agreement which both parties recognized as such and that was unanimously recommended by union representatives to the employees.”
Since the strike began, many Metro workers have been saying they want to see their pandemic “hero pay” of $2 an hour be reinstated.
The tentative agreement between workers and the union included significant wage increases for full-time and senior employees ($3.75 more by July 2026) and a modest increase for part-time Metro workers ($2.65 more by the same date).
The agreement also included better benefits and worker pensions, a paid sick-day program for part-timers and a weekend off every three weeks instead of the current four weeks.
“We hope to welcome our employees back in our stores soon,” Bacon said.
According to Unifor, full-time employees at the 27 Metro stores in the GTA earn an average of $22.60 an hour, while part-timers get $16.62.
