Interest Grows in Safeway Workers’ Battle for Fairness

Media and the Public Show Great Interest in Safeway Workers’ Battle for Fairness

Your union, the United Food and Commercial Workers, Local 401, is not the sort of union to offer “no comment” when it comes to standing up for your interests. President Thomas Hesse always puts it very clearly.

“When it comes to speaking for working people and our members, we will never be silenced,” President Hesse declared. “Their voices will always be heard, and Safeway workers will not be invisible.”

We’re speaking to CTV News, Global News, the CBC, and many others.

If customers ask you about your strike vote and the circumstances around it, be candid and honest, while maintaining the quality service that makes Safeway a great place to shop, and that reminds our country that you really are heroes and deserve a fair contract.

Here’s a CBC article that came out last night, just hours after the strike vote was counted.

One of the things that needs to be understood about media relations is that ultimately the media gets to decide what they feel is important, and they get to craft their stories around what interests them. Our union talks about all of the outstanding bargaining issues, but it’s interesting to note that media outlets are taking a keen interest in the hero pay aspect of the story. In many ways this isn’t a bad thing. For the first time in Canadian history, grocery giant executives have actually been called to Parliament to explain the cancellation of hero pay. Safeway bargaining in Alberta is in part about fair wages, but it isn’t just about fair wages. Nonetheless, a national debate about the morality of removing hero pay is an important debate that we shouldn’t shy away from.

Posted on: June 30,2020