After years of low wages and precarious work, 3,700 Metro grocery workers across twenty-seven stores in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) are prepared to strike, with a 100 percent vote in favor. This will be the first in a series of contract talks across Canada’s grocery sector, after Canadian grocery companies made record profits through the pandemic.

Approximately 140,000 grocery store workers in Canada are unionized, with the majority divided among the country’s three major grocery chains: Metro, Loblaws, and Sobeys. Starting this summer, they’re up for two years of contract talks. The first company up for talks is Metro, with its 3,700 workers in the GTA. Metro has reported the largest net profit of the three major grocers this year. In 2022, Metro’s net earnings was a record $922 million, building on a 26 percent increase and a total net profit of $2.5 billion since 2018.

Metro CEO Eric La Flèche attributed these profits to the “hard work” of his workers, yet there has been no corresponding raise in wages or benefits, except for a few reportedly provided “gift cards.”