Union Responds To Announcement Province Getting Out Of Liquor Retailing
By Robert Thomas
Shock, fear, disbelief and not knowing what is going to happen next is how the employees of the retail side of the Saskatchewan Liquor and Gaming Authority (SLGA) are feeling after they were “blindsided” with the announcement on Wednesday the government was getting out of the retail liquor businesses and they would lose their jobs the union representing says.
In a telephone interview with MJ Independent Bob Stadnichuk vice-president of the retail and regulatory sector with the Saskatchewan Government and General Employees Union (SGEU) said the approximately 350 employees in 34 government owned liquor stores are taking the surprising announcement hard and coping as well as they can given the circumstances.
Although he did not have the exact figures he said the closure would effect about 25 Moose Jaw employees - five who are full-time including the manager and the rest part-time - staff.
The SLGA’s retail outlet in Moose Jaw has - like all government operated outlets - signage they are government run stores. It is something the SGEU points out hurt the chances of the store’s long-term viability as many people prefer to purchase from publicly owned stores - MJ Independent fie photo
Stadnichuk said it was tough on workers to continue working but they would continue on.
“Today we had a meeting with our CEO to hammer out some of the details and it was already figured out how it was going to play out. And then they are faced with this reality and you know it is hard to go back to work. I can understand that for everyone of them that is in that place and showing up the next day is you are walking back into a bombed out zone because there is nothing left there,” he said.
Workers nor the SGEU know exactly when the Moose Jaw Liquor Store located in the former CP Rail passenger station will permanently close its doors.
Employee Morale And Human Impact
MJ Independent asked about staff morale after attending to the Moose Jaw store and meeting cheery employees despite the looming job losses. Stadnichuk said people have been almost devastated in many cases but would continue on professionally.
“That’s our nature we are servants to the public. We are always pleased to have a customer come in and we treat them with respect and we have always had excellent customer service from all of our employees. You can’t take that away from the employees they will always be that way to the very last day.”
He said it will be tough as many customers will be mentioning the closures during their visits.
“They are going to have lots of questions to answer from the public. And they are going to have lots of comments from the public too,” Stadnichuk said.
He said it is a difficult time for employees and so far there has been little help from the employer but it is up to employees to soldier through.
“We are not trained to handle this. It would be like anybody else that is suffering from some sort of loss in our working career that you just have to build a coping mechanism. All SLGA has offered us at this point is here is the number for family assistance that you can go and talk to them if you feel down.”
“It is not enough management should have been a little bit more approachable on this and coming down the way that it did is going to be difficult for the employees to deal with,” he said.
The announcement came with no advance notice to the SGEU or the employees affected but was part of Wednesday afternoon’s Speech From The Throne.
“There was no hint of it. For her (the Minister) to just come out and say it is done it’s over that is over 60 years of public service to this province and they ended it with just a Speech From The Throne.”
The SGEU phones have been literally ringing off the hook the past few days he said from SLGA retail employees looking for more details, he said.
“Our phones are constantly busy. A lot of the employees are asking what is our next step. How are we going to get through this?” Stadnichuk said, adding “we are just trying to calm people down. We are trying to work on some strategies. The phone calls and texts are just constant.”
Stadnichuk said it will be difficult for many employees to find similarly paying jobs and the impact will be massive for many.
“The wages are good. I have to admit this was a good wage paying job it had good benefits. So you could actually raise a family from the wage that you made from the SLGA. So to try to find that again in even a market in Moose Jaw there probably is not a lot of jobs in that category so what do you do with your mortgage? What do you do if you were planning to get a new vehicle? What do you do if you wanted to do vacations or events for your kids? All that is gone.”
Moose Jaw’s government operated retail outlet was more than a liquor store but at the present time the SLGA’s most beautiful store with many tourists coming inside just to look at the interior of the historic former CPR passenger rail station - MJ Independent file photo
Asked what the impact would have on employees with children Stadnichuk said it is likely to be massive.
“It is going to be horrible because now you are going to tell them that we are not going to be able to afford to put you in hockey or we are not going to be able to afford to have dance classes or swim classes. Or you know they are going to have to start to look for another job. Will that mean leaving the community? We don’t know,” he said, adding the predicted recession will impact the laid off workers heavily as they will be looking for a job through the predicted height of it.
Stadnichuk said some employees due to their seniority may have the opportunity to go work in the distribution centre but that would mean bumping an employee with less seniority. The job losses would remain the same.
The Province plans to keep being the sole wholesaler of alcohol in the province as the annual profits from that are about $300 million.
Fighting Back And Severance Packages
In her statements to the media in Regina Minister responsible for SLGA Lori Carr said the government would negotiate severance packages for all employees.
“Up to this point the severance has to be negotiated between the Union and SLGA. So our our negotiating meetings will be meeting soon to try to go over all of that stuff,” Stadnichuk said, adding “we’ll do our best but in the meantime that is just part of this. We are not giving up the fight. We are not just going to roll over and let them do this.”
“We are not giving up the fight. We are not just going to roll over and let them do this.”
He said the union was planning campaigns and meetings to hopefully put pressure on the government to reverse their decision.
“There is going to be a huge fight back.”
Stadnichuk said ordinary people who are concerned about what is happening and want to help out can do so by contacting their local MLA’s, the Minister in Charge or the Premier by letters or the phone to express their concerns and opposition to the announced closures.
“You are going to throw 25 people out of work around Christmas. You are going to take away their jobs for the rest of their lives from that particular location. How does this impact our economy? It is going to be horrible,” he said.
Government’s Claim It’s Economics
Stadnichuk said claims the government retail liquor sales were not viable are untrue and there was still profit coming to the public purse.
“Economically we were giving them (good ideas) even though they restricted us in what we could do as a business. We still made them profits of over a $1 million a year. so there was still money coming into those coffers,” he said, adding “now this profit will go to the private sector and the private sector will just haul that out of the province.”
Stadnichuk said people might complain about the price of beer in Saskatchewan - the highest prices in the country - that once the SLGA retailers close the prices will go even higher.
“If you think your costs for beer are high now just wait until it is just private liquor retailers in this province. Our SLGA stores we kept the price down because we could. And all of the other markets pretty much had to follow suit or otherwise they would be losing on their sales,” he said.
Asked if he thought the SaskParty Government set up the conditions for the SLGA retailers to fail Stadnichuk said he did.
“The Minister is very poor at math I have to say because her way of looking at this and saying we are continually losing money and we are going to have to get out of this. They set us up that way. They don’t allow us to re-invest in our stores so we can make more money. They just take every cent of the profit and put it into the government coffers.”
“They set it up this way. If they would have left us alone we would have continued to give them millions of dollars in revenue,” Stadnichuk said.
Re-investment ideas were identifying government run liquor stores with signage, selling chips, mix and things such as ice. Something private retailers are allowed to do but the government run retailer was not allowed too.
Having to go to multiple stores versus the private retailers who could sell related products had a huge impact on sales, he said.
Another thing was the SLGA retailers could not advertise but the private retailers could advertise which hurt SLGA retail outlets’ sales.
“They didn’t allow us to be a retail operation even though they said you are now a retail organization. They tied our hands.”
He claimed employees would approach the government with ideas they knew would generate money and be told “nope you can’t do it. Nope we won’t let you.”
An additional thing he said the loss of government stores may negatively impact communities is that by not being a retailer where the pressure is to make as many sales as possible the SLGA stores are not bound by that philosophy and so they will not sell to intoxicated or addicted people if they come into by alcohol.
He expressed fears for the three northern communities where the SLGA operates retailers.
Private Stores Favourtized
Stadnichuk said the provincial government’s failure to allow the SLGA stores to change led to their decline against private stores without the same constraints.
“They called this modernization of liquor. And to them modernization was to let private stores come in that is it. And we are just going to let our public stores just continue as they are. Yeah she (Minister Carr) is right we weren’t making as much money as we did but neither did the private stores last year,” he said.
He pointed to not just the government run stores being down sales-wise last year but so to were the private stores due to the economy.
“Everybody’s sales were down. The economy is slowing and for her to announce that is the reason is lies.”
He claimed privatizing the remainder of the SLGA retail outlets would cost the Province over $1 million annually to invest in hospitals, roads or schools - the exact opposite to what Minister Carr said on Thursday.
“They have lost over $25 million a year since they have done the privatization…the government is just looking to pad their pockets quickly and then they will be out of money in no time at all.”
Support For Workers
Stadnichuk typified the support from the SGEU as being “incredible” with other unions in the province offering whatever assistance they can.
“We have people from other unions coming to us and saying ‘whatever you guys need we are here to help you with it’ so the government is going to have to answer to this.”
He said if ordinary people want to help that they call their MLA, the Minister in Charge or the Premier and express their concerns.
“Call your MLA and tell them it was a bad idea.”