LCBO/OPSEU contract talks: Will Dalton McGuinty spend $5 million a day to prevent good jobs in Ontario?

TORONTO – With a strike deadline set for 12:01 a.m. June 24, the key question in contract talks between the LCBO and its unionized workers has boiled down to this: Will Premier Dalton McGuinty spend $5 million a day to prevent good jobs in Ontario?

In 2007-08 the LCBO sent $1.345 billion in profits and $383 million in sales taxes to Queen’s Park for a total of $1.728 billion, or $4.7 million a day on average. In peak periods – like right now – the number is much, much higher. 

“These contract talks are all about what kind of province we want to live in,” said Warren (Smokey) Thomas. “Do we want a province where most people are scraping by on part-time, temporary jobs with no benefits, no security, and no way to save for retirement? Or do we want a province with good jobs that allow people to live decently, bring their children up properly, and retire with dignity?”

“If Dalton McGuinty allows the LCBO to force OPSEU members on to the picket line, it will be because he would rather lose $5 million a day than stand up for the rights of regular working people.”

Sixty per cent of OPSEU members at the LCBO are casuals earning an average income of less than $20,800 a year. Casuals have no benefits, no guaranteed hours of work, and no way to plan for retirement. Of staff with fewer than ten years of service, 88 per cent are casuals.

“OPSEU members at the LCBO are just like millions of Ontarians who are either scraping by on two or three underpaid part-time jobs or worried that they’ll lose the full-time work they do have,” said Thomas. “If the premier is not on the side of all these hardworking people, something is very, very wrong in this province.”