Ten thousand Real Canadian Superstore workers across Canada’s westernmost prairie province, Alberta, appear poised to strike against pandemic pay cuts by Loblaw Companies Ltd. Even after Loblaw reported a banner year in profits and revenue, the company refuses to reinstate their $2 per hour “hero pay.”

This past summer, after over a year of rapid profits, Loblaw decided that its unionized Alberta Superstore workers were due for wage and hour cuts. Superstore’s August 2021 offer, posted on the United Food and Commercial Workers’ Local 401 website, would have cut the hours qualifying for “night premium pay” and cut guaranteed hours for staff. The union pushed for the company to reinstate the $2 per hour “hero pay” it cut last summer, but management refuses to budge.

On September 24, 97 percent of Alberta’s Superstore workers voted to strike. The company responded by retracting its main demand for hours cuts and offering an immediate wage increase of up to $0.90 per hour instead, plus an increase of as much as 1.5 percent in the first year of employment. This minor improvement is only about half the rate of the hourly pay it cut last spring. The latest struggle is yet another chapter in the company’s ongoing efforts to maximize the “flexibility” of its operations by busting unions, cutting wages, and gutting job security.