Tonight (Oct 5th) at 10:25pm, United Food and Commercial Workers Local 401 announced on its twitter account that,
"#Superstore & #Liquorstore strike will commence as scheduled. Time to send #Loblaw a msg: #ItsAboutFairness" and this picture.
Starting Sunday Oct 6th at 12:01am, about 8,500 unionized Superstore workers are going on strike. (Disclosure: this reporter shops at Superstore and did my last pre-strike shopping 6 hours before the strike started.)
Earlier tonight (Oct 5th) at around 6pm, this reporter got to talk to three employees at Real Canadian Superstore Calgary Southport store. At the time, one of the employee still had hope the strike might be avoided. But two others employees had realized the talks would not be able to halt the strike and they had no idea how long the strike would last.
At press time (about 11:51pm MT, Saturday Oct 5th), the strike is only minutes away. One of the best way to get the latest updates in our new media age is to go straight to the twitter accounts of UFCW Local 401 and Real Canadian Superstore or follow the hash tag #superstore.
To understand more of the strike background, it is good to read news media report from sources like Global News,
"United Food and Commercial Workers, which represents the employees, is upset that hours have been slashed, and about 80 per cent of workers are only considered part-time. Many of them depend on their hourly shifts to get by, but Superstore continues to cut back hours.
“In an economy as vibrant as Alberta’s, there is simply no excuse to shortchange the employees whose efforts make your business thrive,” said Gil McGowan, president of the Alberta Federation of Labour, in a statement. “We understand that the retail market is competitive, but it is also profitable – especially here in booming Alberta.”"
