Preserving public wealth from the LCBO can protect essential services, like healthcare

More than 9,000 LCBO workers at 685 retail stores began their province-wide strike at the stroke of midnight on July 5. About 40 LCBO workers from OPSEU local 379 in Kawartha Lakes set up their picket line near the Kent Street West store in Lindsay.

Spirits (though unavailable) were high.

The strike is focused on three issues; wages, more secure employment and the growing privatization of the LCBO. The first two are pretty standard collective bargaining demands for a union. The OPSEU bargaining team is asking for an across the board five per cent wage increase and the creation of more secure full-time positions.

The main issue is that every public dollar that is lost to LCBO privatization must be made up through a higher tax elsewhere. Or, we run the risk of losing an essential public service, such as the closing of the emergency room at the Minden Hospital last year.

What makes this round of bargaining more compelling is the OPSEU demand that the LCBO (and the Ford government) reverse its course on their recent decision to allow commercial stores to sell ‘Ready-To-Drinks’ (RTDs).  Some of these commercial stores include the national chains, such as Loblaw’s.  These are the same chains who weathered public relations damage over their growing profits while the rest of us were watching our grocery bills increase at alarming levels. We should question if this is the best way that the Ford government, through its crown corporation, expresses disapproval at food chains that are viewed as a contributory cause of ‘food insecurity.’

This strike raises important public policy issues. According to the 2022-23 Annual Report of the LCBO, annual sales for that fiscal year were $7.41 billion and the income realized was $2.46 billion. In our age of austerity, particularly in Doug Ford’s Ontario, that is a pretty large addition of funds to our cash-starved hospitals, school boards and social service agencies. This scenario is troubling. Every dollar that is removed from the LCBO ‘public pot’ is transferred to the sales and income columns of the food chains.

Of course a union is going to struggle for its members; for higher wages, for more job security and for better jobs. Yet, in this strike OPSEU is stepping right into the realm of ‘management rights’ and how it is expressed through a public policy that actually works against the public. In the world of public finances that policy can weaken both the rights of workers and the public sector. When that happens, the interests of the unionized workers coincide with the interests of the general population. That overlap is what makes this strike so gripping.

Terry Hickey is the communications coordinator for OPSEU local 379. “This strike is unnecessary. We were forced into the strike by Doug Ford’s privatization agenda which affects all Ontarians. Currently, LCBO sales contribute to the funding of our public services. Transferring much of the RTD sales to supermarkets might seem convenient for consumers but it really translates into higher profits for private corporations. We want to stop that.”

This is not the first time a public sector union was forced into an unnecessary strike by the Doug Ford government. In November, 2022 he passed draconian legislation to impose an inadequate collective agreement on underpaid education assistants with a ‘no-strike’ provision. He showed blatant disregard for our Charter of Rights and Freedoms by threatening to use the ‘notwithstanding’ clause. CUPE bravely fought back the legislation with a two-day strike. In his first mandate, his government enacted Bill 124, an act that limited annual compensation increases to one per cent for a three year period. It has since been declared unconstitutional by the courts.

Now he is targeting underpaid part-time workers at the LCBO while privatizing lucrative parts of the LCBO to companies that already benefit from working Ontarians. LCBO workers are fighting back. They deserve our support.

–By David Rapaport, adjunct professor of Sociology, Trent University.