Author: Varinder Singh

Glenmore Landing Expanded Kosher Selection

Posted on by Varinder Singh

We’re proud of our Glenmore Landing store here in Calgary, where an expanded kosher food selection is receiving great feedback from our customers.

“We’ve added nearly 800 new kosher items, sourced from across Canada at the request of our customers. We want to be the place our customers want to shop. To do that, we needed to respond to their needs,” said Safeway Glenmore Landing Store Manager Doug Felker.

Our Safeway stores provide a wide range of options for different consumer needs. Our expanded kosher selection at Glenmore Landing is just one way we are responding to the needs of our customers.

“Carrying kosher meat and products is something we haven’t done in the past. We listened to our customers and they’re thrilled. I’m hearing every day, whether it’s on our social media or in store, our customers are very happy with what we’ve done,” said Felker.

“We created a forum for customers to share their requests for kosher products. We can’t guarantee that we can get everything, but we’ve done our best to get all the products we could get our hands on. They’ll ask me in store, and I said if there is something you don’t see in store, let me know and we can do our best to get it in.”

One of the most exciting parts of the new products at Glenmore Landing is the response Felker has seen and heard from customers in his store.

“We’ve reset our store to profile these products. Customers are congregating around this section and chatting with friends. It’s great to see and great to have our customers back in our store.”

We look forward to continuing to serve our customers in Calgary and across Western Canada with great service and selection in our Safeway stores.

B.C. Safeway store closures – delayed to July 5

Posted on by Varinder Singh

To our valued employees,

As you are aware, we have been in negotiations with UFCW 1518 regarding the reopener of our Collective Agreement. Negotiations with UFCW 247 and BCT have not yet begun.

We continue to focus our negotiations on reaching collective agreements that will ensure competitive operating costs in our Safeway stores and allow us to introduce our FreshCo. banner to customers in B.C.

Also, you may be aware the Labour Relations Board has appointed Mr. Vince Ready as Special Officer in this file. As part of Mr. Ready’s appointment, the company has agreed that the Safeway stores slated to close on May 5th will instead be closed on July 5th.

The store closure date changed to allow more time for discussion with the labour unions to take place. The store closure dates will not be changed beyond July 5. Through our discussions with Mr. Ready, we are hoping that this 2-month adjournment of store closures will allow him the time he needs to do his job and we believe that this is best for both the company and our employees.

Over the coming weeks, we will be working with the unions to ensure employee bumping rights and seniority are preserved and realigned in accordance with the new closure date of July 5th as required.

We will provide you with information you can share in store to respond to customer questions.

Be sure to visit SafewayTalks.ca regularly to stay up to date. We will continue to provide updates here and with your store manager.

Special Officer Appointed to help us move forward in British Columbia

Posted on by Varinder Singh

On March 28, Hon. Harry Bains, Minister of Labour, appointed a Special Officer to help us move the reopener and the New Banner bargaining along with UFCW 1518.

It’s important that we reach agreements that work for everyone and we look forward to working with Special Officer, Vince Ready and your unions to help us get there.

Competition is growing and in recent years our competitors have added more than two million square feet of store space across B.C. – that’s equal to 57 Safeway stores! We also know that our customer demands are changing; discount stores like No Frills now make up nearly 44 per cent of the Canadian food retail market. Reaching collective agreements that will allow us to compete more effectively will help us tackle these challenges head on in B.C.

We look forward to working collaboratively with Mr. Ready and your unions to achieve agreements that will help us take on the competition, respond to changing customer preferences and bring our FreshCo. stores to B.C.

Together we’ll get it done.

Keep up-to-date with what’s going on at www.SafewayTalks.ca.

Employees vote in favour of agreement with UFCW 832

Posted on by Varinder Singh

UFCW 832 has informed us that members across Manitoba voted on March 25, 2018 in favour of the tentative collective agreement that had been reached between UFCW 832 and the company after weeks at the bargaining table.

We understand this was a difficult bargaining process. We appreciate your patience and support, along with your ongoing daily hard work.

Members from both the company and the union worked hard to achieve this important milestone, which will allow us to compete in today’s challenging, rapidly changing retail grocery industry. Now, we can work together to achieve industry leading store standards, exceed our customer’s expectations and strengthen their loyalty.

We will be working with UFCW 832 to implement the terms of the new agreement.

Keep checking in with us here at www.SafewayTalks.ca to stay informed.

Thank you

Scott Chollak

Vice President

SK, MB, ON

Setting the record straight: we’re working hard to get a deal with UFCW 1518

Posted on by Varinder Singh

We have met with UFCW 1518 for 10 days of negotiation over the last several weeks. We are committed to getting a deal that will help save jobs.  That’s a fact.

We’re correcting the record because UFCW 1518 has been spreading misinformation.

Last week was the first point in negotiations where the union explained their proposals, many of which were not specific to collective agreement terms and conditions. Unfortunately, many of the proposals put forward by the union would increase costs and limit our ability to get our stores back on track.

It is no secret that our stores have been struggling. It costs us more to run our stores then it does for the competitors to run theirs. We can’t continue to operate this way. The union is aware that we must achieve real reductions to our labour related costs.   They have not put forward any proposals that will help achieve that.

We’ve agreed to continue bargaining next week with the understanding that we will begin discussions on specific proposals. We hope UFCW 1518 President Ivan Limpright or Chief Spokesperson, Gary Caroline will join us at the bargaining table so we can come to an agreement together.

We’re at the table to listen and discuss, but now is the time for action. We need to move forward toward an agreement that works for everyone. If we can’t achieve this quickly, the next step of the process will be a move toward final offer selection as laid out in our collective agreement.

Customer Leafletting by the union will only hurt all of us!

Posted on by Varinder Singh

Yesterday, UFCW 401 was on site at some Safeway locations in Alberta handing out misleading, incorrect and distracting information to our valued customers. UFCW 401 asked customers to tell employees they “stand with them in their efforts to save Safeway”.

Safeway would like to tell employees and store managers that we stand with you to win our customers back. We’re investing in marketing, community development and merchandising efforts to help improve our stores and our brand. We’re committed to improving our business so we can all have a stronger tomorrow. And most importantly, we’re proud of our store employees who work so hard to serve our customers in our stores each day.

We are sorry that our employees and customers had to deal with this distraction from UFCW 401 at our stores. Our grocery stores are integral to the communities they serve. It’s unfortunate that this activity by UFCW 401 is distracting us from our goal.

Customer distractions like this will only turn our customers away at a time when our store teams are working so hard to win back our customers. We have been transparent with UFCW 401 about the challenges we’ve been facing as a company. It’s no secret that our Safeway stores have been struggling. We know that employees are working hard to turn things around and we truly appreciate everyone’s hard work and effort.

Let’s work together

Posted on by Varinder Singh

We’re back at the bargaining table today with UFCW 832. We’re working hard to get an agreement that will help us compete in the Manitoba market.

One of the biggest challenges we face is that it costs us more than our competitors to run our stores. We need competitive operating costs if we’re going to compete.

We also need to ensure we can start the conversation on the right deal to bring FreshCo. stores into Manitoba to allow us to compete in the quickly expanding discount market.

There is a lot of hard work ahead but we are hopeful that we can come to an agreement that will work for everyone.

We look forward to working with UFCW 832 to find the right solutions to secure a strong future for all of us.

UFCW 1518 is not helping us build a strong future, we all need to work together

Posted on by Varinder Singh

We want to set the record straight on the incorrect statements made by UFCW 1518’s leadership.

Store closures are not lockouts

UFCW 1518 is incorrectly stating that the recent store closure announcements in BC are a lockout by Safeway. The reality is, these stores have been struggling for quite some time and would have closed regardless of the outcome of our current negotiations.

UFCW 1518 backed away from the tough conversations

Since June of last year, we tried to sit down with UFCW 1518 to review stores that were facing financial difficulty to keep stores open and save jobs, under a process set out in the collective agreement. Unfortunately, the union would not engage in that process. Our company can no longer operate stores that are losing money without a sustainable plan for the future.

UFCW 1518’s actions will drive customers away from our stores

Lately, UFCW 1518 has been handing out materials to customers that diminish our brand and credibility with customers. They have launched campaigns in the public eye focused on turning employees and customers against Safeway.

Tell your union representatives that the only way we can improve conditions is if we work together and allow our store teams to do what they do best, proudly serve their customers and communities. Negative publicity will only drive customers away.

We can only continue to strengthen our stores if we work together

We need a new labour deal that allows us to set solid terms to continue operating our Safeway stores in BC. We have a long history of working with our employees to face many challenges in this tough retail environment. As you know, we have faced some of our most difficult challenges during the recent ownership change. Every member of our team, in and out of our bargaining units, worked hard to address those challenges and we are seeing improvements. We can’t thank you enough for all you’ve done as part of this process.

FreshCo provides us with a unique opportunity to strengthen our business

FreshCo is an exciting opportunity that will provide jobs and strengthen our company overall. UFCW 1518 needs to work with us to reach a new agreement that will allow us to open FreshCo.

To solve the problems we are facing now, we need to roll up our sleeves and work together, as soon as possible.

As always, if you have any questions you can ask us here on Safeway Talks or talk to your store manager. Keep checking www.safewaytalks.ca for updates on this and other issues.

Taking the first step to work together and bring FreshCo. to B.C.

Posted on by Varinder Singh

In our ongoing talks with UFCW 1518, we have made it clear that we would like to start discussing a new collective agreement for our FreshCo. discount grocery stores in British Columbia.

We hope that this discount option could help provide jobs for many Safeway employees who may otherwise be impacted by the store closures that were announced for May of this year.

We have a real opportunity to provide our customers with the shopping experience they are looking for with our FreshCo. banner. This is an exciting opportunity for all of us.

To get there, we need the right terms in our collective agreement. We have worked hard to engage with the unions in B.C. to discuss a discount banner collective agreement, but haven’t made any progress. Because of that, we have sent the respective unions a letter formally announcing our intention to see a new collective agreement for our discount stores. We are using the “New Banner” process in our current collective agreement to kick-start these discussions.

We need to get these conversations underway now. The longer we wait to begin these talks, the more customers we risk losing to our competitors. Delays are bad for our business and bad for our team members.

We look forward to bringing FreshCo. to British Columbia. By working out these tough issues together, we can move ahead to a more stable, successful future for our company.

Stay with us on SafewayTalks.ca for up-to-date information on B.C. negotiations.

Let’s Get It Done Together

Posted on by Varinder Singh

We’re back at the bargaining table with UFCW 1518 in Vancouver this week to get an agreement in place for our valued team members.

Our goal is to negotiate a fair deal that will work for everyone. The grocery industry is more competitive than ever, and we need a new agreement that will allow us to face these challenges head on, together.

In recent years our competitors have added more than two million square feet of store space across the province. That’s equal to approximately 57 Safeway stores!

Much of this new store space is occupied by discount grocery banners. More than half of all grocery shopping now takes place at discount stores like No Frills, and Walmart Supercentres. If you’ve shopped in one of these stores, you know they don’t look much like a traditional Safeway.

That doesn’t mean we aren’t committed to our Safeway stores. It means that to compete we need to provide our customers with more options so they continue shopping with us.

One of the biggest challenges we face is that it costs us more than our competitors to run our stores. We need competitive operating costs if we’re going to stay in business. And most importantly we want to be in a position to introduce our exciting new FreshCo. stores into the province to take on the competition.

It’s important for you to understand some of these facts so that you understand why we have to take action to save jobs and keep stores open.

We love our community in British Columbia and look forward to a bright future here. We’ve expanded and remodeled beautiful new Safeway Extra stores in Dawson Creek, Burquitlam and Willowbrook in Langley and recently renovated the Shaughnessy Station location.

We look forward to working with your union to find the right solutions to secure a strong and exciting future for all of us.

Keep checking in with us at www.safewaytalks.ca for updates. Don’t forget to sign-up to receive email updates at Safeway Talks.