Two Different Directions

Bargaining with Maple Leaf is well underway. Your bargaining committee met with the company on October 21-22 and November 2-4 to discuss the issues that are most important to you. 

Our proposals are a full package of both monetary proposals such as wages, benefits, and guaranteed hours. We have also put forward non-monetary proposals such as seniority, union representation, and other workplace rights.

You can read both the bargaining committee’s and company’s proposal packages here.  

Our proposals cover what we heard from members about your concerns and present our vision for a fair and respectful workplace where Maple Leaf workers are recognized for the importance and value of their work with compensation that allows for a dignified standard of living.  

Maple Leaf has only provided their non-monetary proposals, but they have already indicated that they intend to transform the nature of the workplace to use part-time employees.

To do this, they are proposing broad powers for management to change shift lengths and schedules at any time they want to. They told us that when they do bring their monetary proposals, they will include eliminating any premium or overtime pay on weekends. 

They speak of wanting “flexibility” for management, which translates to heightened insecurity for you and your co-workers. This is unacceptable and offensive to the current full-time employees, including many who have dedicated decades of their lives to working for Maple Leaf. 

It is already clear that we will need our entire membership to stand united – not only reject these destructive proposals, but also to show Maple Leaf that we deserve better.

Divided we beg, but UNITED WE BARGAIN!  

Non-Monetary Bargaining 

The initial phase of bargaining always starts with the proposals that don’t cost money. These non-monetary proposals cover workplace rights and lay out fair rules that ensure that workers’ rights are respected. Our non-monetary proposals seek to achieve the following goals:

• strengthen union rights 
• improve union/management relations
• protect workers’ human rights
• address concerns about line speeds and breakdowns 
• protect workers from arbitrary and intimidating discipline and attendance management, and
• make the collective agreement more easily readable so members can more easily use it as a tool to defend their rights.

For more details on each of these proposal themes and Maple Leaf’s responses, please click here for more information.

Small Victories

Despite a contentious bargaining relationship, we were able to reach agreement on a few areas:

• a union locker will be a convenient and confidential location for union officers to share information and materials
• the employer will collect a digital union membership card from new employees which will help us to communicate with new hires
• the employer will provide more information about employees to the union (such as their specific position/work area) which will help us communicate on an ongoing basis
• new language requiring the employer to correct any errors in the amount of dues they remit
• new titles highlighting the purpose of certain clauses 

Next Steps

At our next bargaining, we will discuss the vacation scheduling process. Our goal is to have a mutually agreed, fair process that could be implemented as early as 2027. 

We will also continue with non-monetary bargaining but given the lack engagement Maple Leaf has shown, we have asked them to bring their full monetary proposals to our next round of bargaining. 

Our next dates are scheduled for December 8, 9 and 10. We know that everyone is eager to see what Maple Leaf is proposing for wages and benefits, and we will be sure to share their proposals with you as soon as we have them. 

Open Bargaining

UFCW 401 is committed to full transparency with our members throughout the bargaining process.

So, in addition to sharing the full ingoing proposals and other detailed information about bargaining, we welcome any members who want to come and observe bargaining to do so whenever you are not scheduled to work. If you are interested in attending bargaining, please contact a member of the committee. 

If Maple Leaf will not bargain seriously to make the improvements that our members need and deserve, we will need everyone to stand together. Although no one ever wants to go on strike, we may have to take that step to show this employer that we will not allow stable, long-term jobs to be replaced to disposable part-time workers. 

If we are united and organized as a collective force to be reckoned with, we can stop Maple Leaf from making things worse. Together, we can achieve the fair compensation and working conditions we know that we need and deserve. 

Your bargaining committee is committed to this goal, but we can’t do it alone. We thank every member for your support and patience throughout the bargaining process and we encourage you to reach out to us with any questions or feedback you may have. 

In solidarity,

Your Union Bargaining Committee
UFCW Local 401

Posted on: November 06,2026