For the Owners of Loblaws, Ripping Off Canadian Workers Is a Family Business
The Westons, owners of Canadian retail giant Loblaws, are leading the fight against decent pay in Canada. Having profited during the pandemic while working people faced hunger and eviction, the family is now fighting tooth and nail to deny labor any share of the gains.
Hilary Weston (L) and Galen Weston attend a Variety dinner celebrating Jake Gyllenhaal during the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival on September 6, 2014 in Toronto. (Sonia Recchia / Getty Images for Variety)
The coronavirus threat has exposed the way our society undervalues workers. The Canadian public hailed healthcare workers as the heroes of these times, organizing rituals of nightly applause for those who were putting themselves and their families at risk to save lives. This morbid exaltation of working people eventually spread to include other frontline employees like cleaners and grocery-store clerks, albeit less fervently.
In the face of our long emergency, it is labor, not capital, whose service has been recognized as “essential.” Some firms capitalized on this public sentiment and introduced wage premiums, popularly referred to as “hero pay” — a $2 top-up for frontline workers in a sector where most earn the government-mandated minimum wage.
It wasn’t long before those companies started to claw back such modest concessions to the well-being of their workers. The Weston family, one of Canada’s richest, was at the head of the pack.
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