Union brings Stay Application to Alberta Court of Appeal on behalf of Safeway employees

The Company is trying to seduce you into voting yes to their contract offer, arguing that it will simplify your life. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Sobeys is part of a monopoly and they have become incredibly arrogant. Everyday, they seem to look for a new way to keep employees under their thumb.

Safeway/Sobeys has made this very complicated. They have most certainly engaged in threatening and intimidating behaviour.

The Company has threatened to close stores or rebrand them to FreshCo’s. They have also threatened to roll back wages.

If you vote yes, the Company has not clearly and explicitly promised that they won’t go after you and attempt to recoup past wage increases. They only seem to say that the increases will remain in effect.

Further, the Alberta Court of Appeal could have an impact on the outcome if you do vote yes. Your union is filing a Stay Application, asking the Court to force Safeway to remove its threats.

Our application will seek to allow you to hang on to your wage increase without fear of repayment until another Court of Appeal hearing occurs in the future.

If the Court grants this request, it could change the voting environment. Additionally, if the Stay hearing does not happen quickly, the voting may not be validated until the Court has weighed in.

What this means is that even if you vote yes this is still a messy situation, and the Company is squarely at fault for that. They could lift their threat and let you vote without that threat hanging over your head.

But their bullying won’t stop.

In fact, this week they tried to turn you against your union and said they were going to sue Local 401. What they didn’t tell you is that your union’s ad is true and fair comment and that their legal action will fail.

As a result, Local 401 has retained an extraordinary media law firm to assist in protecting your interests. 

“The Company is huffing and puffing and engaging in even more bullying,” says UFCW 401 President Thomas Hesse. “The more they do, the more they put the validity of the voting process at risk. It’s an unfortunate circumstance.”

The movement to vote NO is growing. Safeway employees understand that the way you stop a bully is by standing up to the bully.

Voting on Safeway’s offer must be free of undue influence. We are investigating the impact of Safeway’s threats on the voting environment.

“Many employees are telling us that, in their view, the simplest course of action is to vote NO,” adds Secretary Treasurer Richelle Stewart. “Tell Safeway you won’t be bullied and that you want them to come back to the bargaining table for further discussions!”

In a few months, we can serve them with a legal notice to bargain and a real bargaining process with all the protections of the Alberta Labour Relations Code can occur.

Why is Sobeys so intent on rushing this process? You should ask them. Give their Toronto office a call or try contacting the billionaire Sobeys Family in Stellarton, Nova Scotia.

It would seem that their big-shot bullies from Eastern Canada are now weighing in to flex the muscle of the corporation.

It won’t work.

Posted on: January 10,2025