MONTREAL — After six months on the picket line warehouse workers at the Metro food chain in the Montreal area are returning to work. On Sept. 24, 450 out of the 550 who were on strike voted by 77% to accept the new contract. They go back to work stronger from their monthslong struggle for better wages and working conditions.
The workers are members of the Confederation of National Trade Unions (CSN) at the fruits and vegetable warehouse in Laval north of Montreal, the Metro head office in Montreal, and the truck drivers at the warehouse in Rivieres-des-Prairies.
The workers won an immediate 10% raise and wage increase of 22% over five and a half years. Initially the bosses offered a paltry 11% over six years.
“The members are more united than ever. They believed in their fight,” Ricky Theriault, vice president of the union at the fruits and vegetables warehouse, told the Militant. Bernard, a warehouse preparer-loader for 13 years who didn’t want his last name used, said, “We held the line. We have the sentiment that we accomplished something. And we refused a company attempt to install cameras in work areas.” Still, he said, he voted no because he felt that the wage increase wasn’t high enough.
Early in the strike, the company got an injunction preventing picketing within 15 feet of company entrances. Despite Metro hiring strikebreakers — which is supposed to be illegal in Quebec — the government did nothing. Nor did it do anything when the company used two other warehouses,
Theriault says their health and safety protection has been strengthened. Shop steward Mathieu Klein said, “We are going back to work with our heads held high knowing we are now the best-paid workers in the food industry in Quebec.”