Nearly 600 NB Liquor (ANBL) employees could become the latest unionized workers to start walking the picket lines.
Members of CUPE Local 963 voted 97.7 per cent in favour of strike action, the union announced Tuesday morning.
It comes after the New Brunswick Labour and Employment Board declared a deadlock in negotiations on Oct. 8, according to president Jamie Agnew.
“The members have spoken and they have made it very clear. They want a fair deal, and they are ready to walk until a fair deal is presented or achieved,” Agnew told reporters during a news conference in Hanwell, just outside of Fredericton.
Agnew said the union had reached a tentative agreement with ANBL management last year which included a nine per cent wage increase over five years.
But he said the premier blocked the deal because it “did not fit in his plan to freeze public sector wages” and management came back with an offer of 8.5 per cent.
“My members have realized that they’re worth more than that half per cent. They’re worth more than that 11 cents an hour that Mr. Higgs wants to take away from us,” said Agnew.
The members, who work in NB Liquor’s retail outlets and warehouses, will be in a legal strike position as of 12:01 a.m. Tuesday, Nov. 16.
If workers do go on strike, Agnew says retail stores and warehouses will be closed as there are no designated staff at NB Liquor.
“I think you see it on the streets right now. That’s where we’re heading,” he says, referring to the ongoing strikes by several other CUPE locals.
— Brad Perry (@BradMPerry) November 9, 2021
In the event of a strike, Agnew said the Crown corporation’s 41 retail outlets and its warehouses would be forced to close as there is no designated staff. Agency stores would not be impacted.
The union has not been told what contingency plans would be put in place in the event of a strike, he said.
“We have heard some rumours around that they may be hiding some liquor somewhere around the province, maybe to supply their agency stores, but I don’t believe the agency stores can handle the business that NB Liquor handles in the run of a day,” said Agnew.
“We have stores that serve over 2,000 customers a day in our city centres, so the agency stores, in my opinion, will not be able to handle 2,000 customers a day plus the customers they already serve in their stores.”
Agnew noted that NB Liquor reported $505 million in sales during the 2020-21 fiscal year — or nearly $1.4 million a day.
“Whether in retail or at the warehouse, our members have been going full tilt since the pandemic started, delivering record sales. They definitely deserve a fair deal,” he added.
Ten other CUPE New Brunswick locals, who are also without contracts, launched strike action across the province on Oct. 29.
Health care and laundry workers in the three of the locals were ordered back to work Friday through a mandatory order from the Higgs government, which said the strike action was having a “significant impact” on the health care sector.
Stephen Drost, president of CUPE New Brunswick, said it is “totally unnecessary” to have 11 different locals voting in favour of strike action, calling it a “sad day for New Brunswick.”
“Here we have another local from a different sector in this province that has had to go all the way through the bargaining process up to and including taking a strike vote and then informing the public that they will be exercising their legal right for job action simply to get a fair wage,” said Drost.
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