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Shoppers Drug Mart refuse to negotiate fair successor contracts in Calgary


HSAA/NUPGE seeks Labour Board assistance to determine successor collective agreement for Shopper's Drug Mart outpatient pharmacies in Calgary.

Calgary (14 June 2012) - Over the past 13 months, the Health Sciences Association of Alberta (HSAA/NUPGE) has made efforts to reach a successor collective agreement for members working at these Shoppers Drug Mart outpatient pharmacies in Calgary. The union has been in negotiations with the three new organizations running outpatient pharmacies at Peter Lougheed Centre, Alberta Childrens Hospital and Foothills Medical Centre. The pharmacies operate under a Shopper's Drug Mart banner.

The three new pharmacy organizations became successor employers when the Alberta Health Services (AHS) transferred operation of outpatient pharmacies in June 2011. With successorship, bargaining rights HSAA/NUPGE had with AHS were preserved and became applicable to the new pharmacy organizations.

It became abundantly clear in late March and mid April, the new employers were seeking to gut collective agreement terms that ought to apply in the new pharmacies. Various employer proposals were also substantially less than what applies within a Shoppers Drug Mart "employee handbook". Their offer on economic matters and other substantive issues were equally disappointing.

On June 5, they demonstrated this same approach by proposing wage freezes.

Based on that approach, HSAA/NUPGE has recently and reluctantly concluded that there is little prospect of resolution without assistance from the Alberta Labour Relations Board to resolve a number of outstanding issues. These include wages, bargaining unit work, leaves, parental and adoptive leave, scheduling change, overtime, call back and weekend premiums, witness/jury pay, sick leave, shift differential, vacations, workers compensation board top up, scheduling issues, benefits, pension, as well as issues affecting part-time, temporary and casual employees.

There are approximately 25 employees working as pharmacists and pharmacy technicians in the three pharmacies. There are also casual pharmacists and pharmacy technicians as well.

NUPGE

The National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE) is one of Canada's largest labour organizations with over 340,000 members. Our mission is to improve the lives of working families and to build a stronger Canada by ensuring our common wealth is used for the common good. NUPGE