Monday, June 7, 2021

Turning the Tables

The bargaining table is often a battleground in traditional labour negotiations. CLAC and Save-On-Foods have opted to do things differently—and it works

Guide Magazine

By Cathy Miehm

LOCAL 301 MEMBER JOSH MARRAZZO was “happily disappointed” with the last round of bargaining for Save-On-Foods’ 4,000-plus employees in Alberta.

CLAC and Save-On concluded bargaining late in 2020—much of it done through the pandemic—and produced a five-year contract that was endorsed by a strong majority of Local 301 members who cast ballots in an online ratification vote.

Josh is a customer service specialist in the dairy department of Save-On Foods’ Ellerslie Road location in Edmonton. He has been with the retailer for 20 years and is also a CLAC steward.

“This was my very first round of bargaining,” he says. “I had never been a part of it before, and I didn’t really know what to expect going into it. I suppose I had my own preconceived notions about what would happen. Maybe I watched too many TV dramas, but I had this idea that it could be very combative, very adversarial.”

None of that turned out to be true, hence Josh’s happy disappointment. In fact, he found the entire negotiating process collaborative and respectful.

“The thing that struck me the most is that nobody ever raised their voice, no one stormed out of the room or slammed their fists on tables. We were two parties that had similar interests and goals, and we worked together to find a pathway forward that was acceptable to all of us.”

In traditional bargaining, managers and union members come to the table with proposals for everything from wages and scheduling to benefits, pensions, and grievance procedures. When the two sides have competing priorities, negotiations can be combative and often break down, which leads to conciliation or mediation. If that fails, a strike or lockout is often inevitable.

Over the years, CLAC and Save-On-Foods have worked to create a relationship that makes collegial negotiations possible. It hasn’t happened by serendipity, says Carla Brink, CLAC representative.

“Four rounds of bargaining ago, we were in a place where there were gaps in communication. The parties were not really understanding where the other side was coming from. This led to hard feelings, frustration, and the sense that the bargaining process was static.

“In 2009, we hired a consultant who helped us craft an interest-based bargaining process that we have been able to use ever since and make our own. It is different from traditional bargaining because we don’t come to the table with proposals or solutions. We come with the issues and work toward a solution together.”

During bargaining, managers, workers, and CLAC representatives work as a team to examine each issue from all sides.

“We then look at the interests of the parties,” says Carla. “Often, we have found that there are a lot of shared interests.”

LOCAL 301 MEMBER VICKI GAGNE is a 25-year employee of Save-On Foods and a veteran of the bargaining process. She took part in several rounds of traditional negotiations and greatly prefers the interest-based approach.

“I like that we try to come to the best possible outcome for both parties,” says Vicki, who is price-change lead at the Spruce Grove store west of Edmonton. She has also been a CLAC steward for 20 years.

“When we had traditional bargaining, it always felt like it was us against them,” she says. “They would sit on one side of the table and we would sit on the other. Whereas now, we’re all sitting as a group.”

Josh found this process very informative and appreciated the chance to tackle some broader issues with management, such as success and stability.

“We heard how the company needs to grow and expand to survive for the future. That was their interest. Our interest was that we want our team members to be able to grow their careers and have long term sustainability and a solid future. So that’s a common goal that we can all get behind.”

That broader commitment to shared success then became a touchpoint as they negotiated the specifics, such as wages and scheduling.

Save-On-Foods managers are fully on board with the interest-based bargaining model. Greig Cannard is the retailer’s manager of people and culture for Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. For many years, he worked as a store manager and has had a long association with CLAC. He sees the collaborative bargaining process as a natural extension of CLAC’s Cooperate to Win training, which Save-On-Foods has used.

Cooperate to Win is an innovative labour relations training program developed by CLAC for stewards and managers. It teaches the principles of positive labour relations and is designed to help create a workplace culture where conflict resolution can happen in a positive setting.

“We’ve had the opportunity to take part in the Cooperate to Win sessions that CLAC has put together for a number of years,” says Greig. “We’ve endeavoured to put as many key influencers from our stores as possible through the program, whether that’s managers or team members or stewards. We look at our team members as our internal customers. By fostering a positive work environment for our internal customers, we can spend more time and energy focussing on providing our Always Customer First service to our external customers.”

It was natural to bring that spirit of cooperation to contract negotiations. Greig appreciates how well it works for Save-On-Foods.

“When we go into bargaining, I call it the big room,” he says. “There are two distinct parties going into that room, but once you’re in the room, you’re working together. What are the issues? What are the interests? What are some options that could work? We are all trying to get to that landing spot where everyone goes, ‘Yeah, that makes sense.’”

Phil McFayden, a store manager, has been with Save-On-Foods for 41 years but was new to contract negotiations. He was asked to join the company’s bargaining committee when the latest round of talks was scheduled in 2019.

“They always pick a few managers to sit on the committee,” says Phil. “I had no preconceived notions going in, and I didn’t know what it was going to be all about. But it was very interesting and a really good process. I enjoyed it.”

His own relationship with CLAC has been positive, and he was happy to bring his experience as a responsive manager to the table.

“I’ve got a very open-door policy,” says Phil, who manages the Baseline Road store in Sherwood Park. “If there’s an issue, I want to get on it right away and fix it rather than let it fester, so the relationship with team members at my store is really good.

“And the working relationship with CLAC is outstanding. I know I can bounce ideas off the union stewards and reps. We can talk about things until we get the right solution for the store and the team members and everybody involved.”

THE LAST ROUND OF BARGAINING came with some unexpected hurdles. The outbreak of COVID-19 delayed the process for several months in 2020, during which time managers and team members were scrambling to establish stringent new health and safety protocols while also providing worried customers with as many shopping options as possible. When negotiations did resume last summer, it was under very different dynamics.

“We had to set it up more like traditional bargaining,” says Vicki. “We had to sit across from each other, and everybody had to be six feet apart, so at first it kind of felt like it was us against them again. But really it wasn’t because we were all in there working together.”

While the pandemic was certainly top of mind when the teams got back to the table, the issue never threatened to swamp or derail negotiations.

“We would have conversations about the impact of COVID on our team members, and the pandemic itself, which has really impacted our stores,” says Greig. “But it wasn’t something anyone felt had to be specifically addressed in the collective agreement because we really do hope that we’re dealing with a once-in-a-lifetime event.”

The greater hardship by far was the sudden death of CLAC representative Derek Schreiber in August 2020. Derek had represented Save-On-Foods workers for more than 20 years and was the driving force behind the shift to interest-based bargaining.

“Derek really sparked the plan to go in this direction and was instrumental in developing and nurturing our overall interest-based relationship with Save-On-Foods,” says Carla.
His death came just as negotiations were resuming last fall.

“It was hard,” says Vicki, who had worked with Derek for most of her career. “That first day without Derek was terrible. We placed an empty chair at the head table as a way to show that he was still with us. Everybody was an emotional wreck.”

The loss was felt by the management team as well. Phil had known Derek since the late 1990s, when Phil first became a store manager in Fort McMurray.

“Out of my 20-plus years as a store manager, he’d been my union rep for at least 15 of them,” he says. “He had this way with managers, a way of keeping things calm. We could have some really open conversations and I respected him so much.”

“That was a tough day, a tough week, a tough month,” says Greig. “Derek and I had many opportunities when I was a store manager to work through some challenging situations and even more since I moved into this role.

“What I respected about Derek was that he was always focussed on doing what was right, whatever that took. I know that I, and all of Save-On-Foods, truly miss his wealth of experience, his passion, and his real support of our team members.”

Carla and Mike Montague, a fellow CLAC representative, stepped in to finish the negotiations. The new collective agreement is dedicated to Derek, in honour of his long commitment to members employed by Save-On-Foods.

DEREK’S LEGACY IS A LABOUR-MANAGEMENT relationship at Save-On-Foods that is uniquely poised to meet the challenges of the competitive grocery industry. Phil says part of it is the can-do attitude everyone has.

“With the pandemic and everything going on in the grocery business, you’ve always got to look at things a little differently day to day. Just because we ran it this way today, doesn’t mean tomorrow it’s going to work. You’ve got to be ready for change because change is always coming. If we’re not embracing that, we’re in trouble. I think as a company and a union, we both do that very well.”

Vicki is marking her silver anniversary with Save-On-Foods and has never regretted her career path.

It was my second job out of high school,” she says. “Every store that I’ve been in, the managers have always had an open-door policy, and you can go to them about anything. When I said I was interested in moving to price change, they let me know as soon as that opportunity was available.”

She appreciates the relationship Save-On-Foods and CLAC have cultivated and believes it’s unique for the industry. She has friends who work for other grocery retailers who marvel at the bargaining successes and positive workplace culture.

“The managers are willing to work with us and we are willing to work with them. It’s pretty simple, but I think that’s the key.”

Save-On-Foods Facts

Save-On-Foods stores trace their history back to New Westminster, BC, in 1915, when the first store opened.
It was christened Overwaitea because of founder R. W. Kidd’s practice of selling 18 ounces of tea for the price of 16 ounces.
Overwaitea was purchased in 1968 by Jim Pattison, a well-known BC business magnate and philanthropist.
Many stores were converted to the Save-On-Foods brand during an expansion and renovation of the chain in the 1990s and 2000s.
The first Save-On-Foods store in Alberta opened in 1990 in Edmonton.
There are now more than 180 stores throughout western Canada, including the Yukon. Two more locations are slated to open this year in Winnipeg.
Save-On-Foods also operates stores under the banners of Urban Fare, PriceSmart Foods, PriceSmart Foods International, and Bulkley Valley Wholesale.

Sources: Save-On-Foods

Josh Marrazzo

Phil McFayden

Greig Cannard

Vicky Gagne

Derek Schreiber

Turning the Tables

Save-On-Foods Facts

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