Message from Bargaining Team Chair

Good LBED jobs help build strong communities!

Happy New Year’s brothers and sisters and welcome to the first issue of our 2013 Bargaining Bulletin as we look forward to start contract negotiations with our employer in a few short weeks.

If the headline on my message – Good LBED jobs help build strong communities – sounds familiar it’s because it’s the same key message we used in our last round of bargaining in 2009. There’s a very simple reason for this: our fight for good jobs with the LCBO is an ongoing struggle. And the only way we can build good jobs is through our negotiated contract. It means improved wages and benefits, stronger job security and improved health and safety standards.

Better wages and benefits, strengthened job security and upgrades to health and safety in the workplace are the key demands you brought forward during our demand-setting process in 2012. Your bargaining team knows your priorities and, as chair of the bargaining team, I pledge we will produce the results you called for, leading to a stronger contract.

When you boil it right down our good strong jobs message really means imagining the quality of life you and your families seek; to ensure your children are provided with opportunities, and the ability to retire with dignity. That’s what good jobs are all about.

But to deliver those results we must rely on the demonstrated solidarity from each and every one of you. When negotiators for management look across the bargaining table they won’t be facing your seven-member negotiating team but a unified and strong LBED workforce of 7,000.

In the weeks and months ahead your local leaders will call on you to attend information meetings and to participate in some public action to show the employer we stand strong together. For the sake of building better jobs and for the goal of hammering out a strong contract, I urge you to heed their call. As we liked to say back in our previous round of bargaining four years ago: We’re All in the Same Boat!”

In Solidarity

Denise Davis
Chair, LBED Bargaining Team

Bargaining dates

On Jan. 7 your bargaining team filed a notice to bargain with the employer, as required under Ontario labour law. With that in place the two sides have now scheduled the first series of face-to-face meetings.  They are: Feb. 26-28, Mar. 1 and Mar. 26-28. More dates will be scheduled if necessary.

Our current contract with the LCBO expires on Mar. 31, 2013.

Privatization is NOT up for negotiations

Ontario Conservative party leader Tim Hudak – in cahoots with the Ontario Convenience Stores Association – has been making plenty of noise recently about allowing beer and wine sales in corner stores. Hudak has also mused about looking someday at the potential privatization of all or parts of the LCBO.

All LBED members must be clear on one thing: the current provincial government under the Liberals has no plans whatsoever to privatize the LCBO or put beer and wine in corner stores. The NDP also firmly opposes any move in this direction.

In fact the government is moving in the opposite direction. On Dec. 31 Finance Minister Dwight Duncan announced that the LCBO will be opening 10 “LCBO Express” stores in major grocery stores over the next 18 months. They will be owned and operated by the LCBO and will be staffed by unionized OPSEU members in the liquor board division.

This is very good news for us. It will open up more jobs. It’s consumer friendly. And it ensures we maintain the highest standards of social responsibility.

On top of that, in 2012 the LCBO announced it will be opening 70 new stores over the next three years across the province and converting a handful of agency stores to real LCBO outlets. Again this is great news for us. More jobs. More opportunities.

Ignore Tim Hudak and his wild-eyed ideas about the future of the LCBO. As usual, he’s on the wrong side of public opinion and always will be.

Join the Jan. 26 rally outside Maple Leaf Gardens

On Jan. 26 hundreds of OPSEU members from across the province will be rallying outside of Maple Leaf Gardens to “greet” delegates attending the Liberal party’s leadership convention.

This is an invitation to as many LBED members as possible to join their brothers and sisters from other OPSEU sectors and tell the Liberals their policies have increased income inequality and weakened public services that we all rely on.

“The Liberals have taken our province in the wrong direction,” said OPSEU president Warren (Smokey) Thomas. “They’ve attacked public services and jobs while cutting taxes on the richest corporations in Canada. They’ve wasted public dollars on privatization fiascos such as e-Health, ServiceOntario and Ornge.”

LBED organizers will be at the rally handing out placards containing our message behind this round of bargaining: Our Community Needs Good Jobs!

Date:  Saturday Jan. 26

Time:  7:00 a.m. – 9:00 a.m.

Location:  Maple Leaf Gardens at the corner of Carleton and Church streets. If you plan to arrive by TTC, exit at the College subway station on the Yonge-University-Spadina line.

Stay informed

As we approach bargaining next month make it your priority to stay on top of the news.

·     Attend upcoming bargaining information meetings. The first of these meetings will begin in mid-February. Visit www.opseu.org/lbed/collective.htm  for the date and location of your local’s information meeting. A complete list will be posted shortly.

·     Receive the Bargaining Bulletin newsletter directly to your Inbox by email. Just call the OPSEU Resource Centre at 1-800-268-7376 or 416-443-8888 and give the operator your name and secure email. Please do not use your LCBO email address.

·     Bookmark the address at www.opseu.org/lbed/collective.htm  on the OPSEU website to learn more about what’s happening inside the Liquor Board Employees Division.

Your 2013 bargaining team

Denise Davis, Chair

Local 378 – Durham Warehouse denise.davis@rogers.com

Tracy Vyfschaft, Vice Chair

Local 377 –Ajax/Pickering/Oshawa/Whitby tcshaft@explorenet.com

Julian Benson

Local 5108 – North York/Thornhill/Unionville/Markham julianbensontoroton@gmail.com

Nick Foti

Local 5109 – Toronto Head Office and Warehouse foti.nick@sympatico.ca

Colleen MacLeod

Local 5107 – Mississauga/Etobicoke lbedscretary@rogers.com

Jeremy Trainor

Local 378 – Durham Warehouse presidentlocal378@gmail.com

Jenn Van Zetten

Local 162 – Chatham/Windsor ajzetten@mnsi.net

Your 2013 Bargaining Bulletin is authorized for distribution by Denise Davis, Chair, Liquor Board Employees Division
Warren (Smokey) Thomas, President, Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU))