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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 5^th will instead be closed on July 5^th.

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 5^th 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.