(Montreal) After a year and a half of strike, white smoke finally emerged from the conclave of the general assembly of some 250 employees of the Société québécoise du cannabis (SQDC). Nearly 85% of them endorsed the recommendation of the chief conciliator of the Ministry of Labor.
As the employer also endorsed this recommendation, union members will be able to return to work in the coming weeks.
The strike only affected a little more than twenty of the 98 branches of the SQDC, those where the union members are members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE-FTQ).
Wages at the heart of the conflict
“What dragged out the conflict were the salaries,” explained union advisor Daniel Morin, in an interview with The Canadian Press. With the help of the mediator, we managed to bring the parties together by completely reviewing the salary scale in a more advantageous way for our employees. »
He specified that working conditions, particularly with regard to hours and precariousness, had already been negotiated for several months. “There have been improvements on that side too. »
Mr. Morin indicated that new employees who will be hired in branches of the SQDC unionized with CUPE will receive $21 per hour upon hiring, compared to $17.12 in the last year of the previous contract, which came expiring in December 2021. “The choice to campaign to obtain better conditions can be explained and defended really well,” believes Daniel Morin.
However, he recognizes that a strike of a year and a half is a heavy ordeal. “It’s never easy to go on strike to demand, but you have to understand that working as an advisor at the SQDC, especially when you enter with a salary of $17 an hour and hours that greatly limit the number of working hours, we weren’t really doing well with the cost of living in 2023.”
No parity with the SAQ
On the other hand, one of CUPE’s stated objectives was to obtain parity with the advisors of its sister state corporation, the Société des alcools du Québec (SAQ), but this objective could not be achieved since the SAQ remunerates its wine advisors $24.14 at the door. “Our members compared their work to that of their colleagues at the SAQ and as a result, we sought to have similar salaries and conditions. But what was presented by the mediator was a way out of the crisis. In this sense, no, we did not seek out exactly salaries that are comparable to those of the SAQ,” admitted Mr. Morin.
The agreement concluded is for a period of five years and will expire on March 31, 2027.
All SQDC advisors must complete training and Daniel Morin says he expects his members to have all completed this training within three weeks.
Only 24 of the 26 branches whose employees are affiliated with CUPE were on strike. The twenty branches unionized with the CSN were not affected by this work stoppage. A little more than half of the state corporation’s branches are not unionized.