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.