Unionization efforts continue for Ottawa Wine Rack employees despite the firing of their main spokesperson.
Ex-Wine Rack employee Miles Krauter, 28, has been organizing protests in the downtown area since January to encourage workers to sign voting cards for the unionization drive.
“A lot of times, people don’t think of this job as being permanent,” he says. “But for older workers, that’s what it becomes.”
After speaking to older ex-coworkers about struggling to get by on three- or five-hour shifts and minimum wage, Krauter says he found the motivation to unionize.
Wine Rack stores are owned by Constellation Brands, the largest international distributor of wine and beer products based in the United States. The company’s website says Wine Rack retailers in particular focus on selling more than 150 different kinds of Ontario and Canadian blended wines.
The wine retailers are unique to Ontario, Wine Rack’s website adds, with 160 stores across the province in more than 60 municipalities.
To unionize, support is needed from the 88 employees at the 22 Wine Rack locations in Ottawa, including the Elgin Street and Bank Street locations in Centretown.
The movement and resulting protests have created conflict in Wine Rack locations in the city. One notice to Wine Rack employees, photographed and posted on Facebook, stated that outside organizers helping workers assemble the union are doing so “to attempt to mislead” employees so they can “pursue their agenda.”
The letter added that negotiations about employment conditions “do not require the intervention of a third-party union.”
Sean Taylor, vice-president of retail at Constellation Brands Canada, stated that the reported placement of anti-union letters in stores by the company is “false.” Taylor maintained that the corporation “is committed to ensuring our employees’ voices are heard.”
Despite efforts by Centretown News to contact local managers of Wine Rack, they did not respond to interview requests.
Krauter says he was fired by Wine Rack for having missed a shift in September, two days before his trial period ended.
Under provincial laws, any employee is able to form or join a union, including probationary employees like Krauter.
To create a template for a future collective agreement, Krauter is working with the Industrial Workers of the World, a volunteer-run organization based in Chicago that encourages the formation of independent unions.
John Hollingsworth, one of the organization’s representatives, says that based on the interviews IWW has done with Wine Rack workers and managers, the union movement is likely to be successful.
“We wouldn’t be doing our due diligence and investigating if we didn’t believe they had a strong case,” he says.
The new union would try to fight for a deal better than one created for Wine Rack workers in Toronto through the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) local 2, a union based in the city. Their current collective agreement, signed in 2013, includes provisions for performance-based wage increases and benefits including pension plans.
That agreement also notes that full-time employees of Wine Rack can claim benefits.
However, a store-staffing memo within the agreement notes that there are only two full-time employees out of more than 100 total employees in the GTA.
Ted Mansell, executive vice president of SEIU local 2, said that the collective agreement for Toronto workers doesn’t go far enough to bridge the wage gap experienced by Wine Rack employees.
“The last negotiations we had got down to a supervised vote from the Ontario government because Constellation said there weren’t going to be any increases in pay,” he said. “Constellation Brands hasn’t been a good corporate citizen in Ontario.”
SEIU local 2’s collective agreement indicates that Toronto Wine Rack employees are the only ones to create a union, but Mansell notes that it has been in place “for decades,” before Wine Rack was sold to Constellation Brands in 2006.
Along with bargaining rights, Krauter and those supporting the union in Ottawa are asking for his reinstatement. Backed by IWW, Krauter is initiating a case with the Ontario Labour Relations Board against Wine Rack, claiming unfair labour practices leading to his termination.
Although Krauter says he does not like the work conditions at Wine Rack, he says he still needs the job.
“It’s not like there are great jobs out there for everyone, and all we need to do is shop ourselves around,” he said. “Right now I’m underemployed and need to make ends meet.”
The Ontario Labour Relations Board is set to review Krauter’s case on May 13.