Leduc Safeway Employees Enjoy “Lunch & Learn”

On September 22nd a very successful “Lunch & Learn” event was held at the Leduc Safeway.

Shop Stewards June Liebrecht, Thomas McIntosh, Bonnie Harke, and Kimberly Carey were there with Local 401 Senior Labour Relations Officer Shauna Robertson. Together they had fun and shared information with all the members in attendance about the privileges of belonging to the largest private sector union in Alberta, UFCW Local 401.

A fantastic lunch was generously provided by Store Manager Rob Howe. Thank you very much, Rob! Many thanks also to the bakery department employees for the beautifully decorated and delicious cake. And another thank you to Local 1118 deli staff for providing hot pizzas throughout the event.

401 members received instructions on how to access the wide variety of interesting courses available to them for FREE on UFCW Canada’s online learning website, webCampus. They also were reminded of the (paid time off!) courses and training available to them at their own 401 office in Edmonton. Information on all of the fabulous yearly UFCW scholarships were also available. All of this information is available on your union bulletin boards in your lunchroom and also on our website. You can also find out what is going on through our Facebook and Twitter pages!

Members were particularly excited to find out about all of the great improvements and new additions to their part-time benefit plan. Check out your Safeway benefit plans and your Union Contract (Collective Agreement), which outlines all your rights at work, here.

Those in attendance were given UFCW 401 water bottles, lanyards, pens, pins, nail files, calendars, Collective Agreements, and belt buckles!

Most importantly the “I WILL BE STRONG IN 2017” buttons were re-distributed to all members. Please remember to wear your buttons DAILY to work! It is important to wear them as we get closer to contract negotiations next year. We all need to send a strong, united message to your employer, Safeway/Sobeys, if we are to achieve a fair and improved Union Contract in the next round of negotiations.

Before we enter negotiations we will have proposal meetings for all Safeway members to attend and give us their input. Let’s prepare early, start thinking about what your top ten bargaining priorities are, and how we can achieve these proposals in negotiations.

Please share your thoughts and proposal ideas with your union and your co-workers and remind each other to wear your buttons! The “I WILL BE STRONG IN 2017” buttons send a powerful message to your employer! Your employer is well organized going in to negotiations and we must be too, and showing your solidarity with one another by wearing your pins each day is one way to send a strong message.