Industry committee  Thank you, Madam Chair. On behalf of the United Food and Commercial Workers, I want to thank the standing committee for the opportunity to share our perspective today, for your work on this subject, and for bringing further attention to this very important issue. As the union fo

Industry committee  [Technical difficulty—Editor] of the summaries is very accurate. There's no doubt that the pandemic is not over. I would just like to add a couple of significant issues. We were contacted by Loblaws to say they were going to end the pandemic pay. We were adamantly opposed to en

Industry committee  Mr. Masse, thank you for your question, because it will illustrate this. What's important for everybody to understand—and the Teamsters and Unifor are aware of this as well—is that the current situation that we find ourselves in with grocery store workers is that the downturn in

Industry committee  Could I address that question as well, Mr. Dreeshen?

Industry committee  Early on in this pandemic, we put together a list with our unions around the world of the 20 best practices for retail stores that included everything that you see now. Many of those came from workers, they came from unions, and some did come from the employers. We forwarded th

Industry committee  We've been as high as 60 active cases throughout Canada. We've had four deaths in the retail sector. We've had two deaths in the meat-processing sector, and well over 3,000 people impacted at one point or another in food processing.

Industry committee  The thing that they will always bring up is who their competition is and what their competition pays. Our argument back is that we believe the system is actually flawed. The logistical system of retailing groceries is flawed when we are more concerned about driving lower costs,

Industry committee  I can begin. On the sheer mathematics of it, Mr. Masse, absolutely. If you have five people or three people coming in to do part-time work, and one full-time person could do that job, clearly that would be fewer points of contact, so there's no doubt that just on the simple math

Industry committee  I think that question always comes up when we talk about either the minimum wage or raises through a collective agreement. I think there's a bit of fallacy in that situation. We hear it from small retailers and we hear it from large retailers, each time, that if minimum wages go

Industry committee  There's been talk for a long time in Canada about a living wage. I think that's a conversation that has to seriously, seriously get some legs. As well, a conversation on guaranteed minimum income needs some legs. Going back to my comment earlier, there has to be a full discussi

Industry committee  I would also suggest, though, that even the small retailers are buying groceries from a warehouse situation. They are perhaps getting advertising assistance as franchisees. There are very few completely independent grocery operators left in Canada. They are attached to a Loblaws,

Industry committee  Yes, it was communicated to the UFCW before it was made public. We had conversations with all three of these employers about how to implement it and how to get it done. The conversation—

Industry committee  Well, there were a few reasons. They were doing it to recognize that there was a situation in their stores and that there were some risks involved for workers who were in an unusual situation. There were some employment retention situations. All of these things became a part of

Industry committee  I had a conversation with Loblaws with regard to ending the pandemic pay. They called to inform me that they were ending the pandemic pay. As I said, I was adamantly opposed to ending it.

Industry committee  Shortly before that, Mr. Erskine-Smith. I'm sorry, I don't have the exact date in front of me, but it would have been within a couple of days of their making the announcement.