FOR UFCW LOCAL 247 MEMBERS WORKING AT BC SUPERSTORES
With the upcoming increase to the BC minimum wage, your union pushed Loblaw to implement the “Minimum Wage Adjustment” language in our Collective Agreement at the earliest possible time. We are pleased to let you know that these efforts were successful.
This means a vast majority of Superstore members, those in the progression on “Clerk” wage scale, will receive wage increases effective June 1, 2025.
Weeks later, in July, members receiving wages on other scales or those “over scale” will receive their usual annual / “off scale” increases consistent with the 2022-2027 Superstore Collective Agreement.
Minimum wage is an important part of the BC Employment Standards Act. It sets out the legal minimum rate that hourly workers can be paid by their employers.
From 2001-2015, over 14 years, the BC minimum wage went up by only $2.25. Since 2015, over the past 10 years, it has gone up by $7.40.
Without a doubt, the rapid increase in the minimum wage is the result of constant lobbying and campaigning by unions and worker advocates. It also has a lot to do with the election of more worker-friendly governments in BC.
In 2024, the BC NDP government further committed to increasing the minimum wage when they amended the BC Employment Standards Act to ensure that all future increases will be automatically determined by the previous year’s average inflation rate for BC.
In other words, it is now a law that the minimum wage will be fixed to inflation – unless another government is elected and worsens minimum wage laws (Alberta lowered the minimum wage for students under 18 in 2019).
The increase in the BC minimum wage is an important policy, and unions (including ours!) have applauded it.
That said, its rapid rise has impacted nearly every private sector union collective agreement in some way or another, and this is something that needs to be worked through.
In our last round of negotiations with Superstore in 2021-2022, our union bargaining committee negotiated a clause that provided for an adjustment to the “Clerk” scale based on future increases to the minimum wage in 2025 or 2026. That is why this increase is happening now.
As part of the negotiations process, Superstore members had given our union bargaining committee a number of priorities, including:
Along with achieving the first point above, our union bargaining committee also focused on increasing wages for long-term members who had already worked their way up the scales over the years.
The thinking at the time was, if our committee prioritized wages at the bottom end of the scales, more and more of those negotiated increases would be wiped out every time the minimum wage went up.
On the other hand, if we put increases to the highest paid members, those “off scale,” then long-term employees would get some recognition (we know it could always be more!). But importantly, those senior members would keep their increases no matter what happened with the minimum wage.
In early 2022, our bargaining committee knew the minimum wage would increase, but no one could have known by how much. It was also uncertain whether the NDP government would win in the next provincial election.
Those who have been in union contract negotiations know it is difficult to get an employer to agree to an uncertain increase.
Still, our union bargaining committee was able to convince Loblaw to agree to a Minimum Wage Adjustment clause affecting a vast majority of our members, who would now be on the new “Clerk” scale (see LOU #12 on Page 109 of the Collective Agreement, or here).
According to that clause, the Minimum Wage Adjustment could happen in either 2025 or 2026. There are a few reasons by pushing to implement this early makes sense:
In other words, the fix was needed now.
Effective Sunday, June 1, 2025, the new scale for food clerks will be as follows:
New rates on the above scale are in the BLUE column.
Check your pay stub, which you should be able to see in the WorkDay app. If you are having difficulty, you can always see your Store Admin for help. For example, for food clerks with 8200 hours, your current rate would be $17.40.
Move to the next column to see what your rate of pay will be as of June 1, 2025. If your rate is blue, then it has been affected by the Minimum Wage Adjustment. For example, a food clerk with 8200 hours would be earning $17.40 now, but on June 1 will be earning $18.95. Once they reach 8500 hours, they will receive $19.05.
Just for your information, we included above a further column at the right to show the difference between your rate of pay before and after the adjustment.
In summary, every member on this scale should see an increase of between $0.30 and $1.60 per hour starting on Sunday, June 1, 2025. The only Food Clerks earning the legislated BC minimum wage (increasing to $17.85 on June 1) will be those newly hired with less than 1,000 hours worked.
If you are having trouble understanding the table, have questions, or discover an error in your pay once this has been implemented, feel free to contact your UFCW Local 247 Union Representative for support by clicking this link:
CONTACT YOUR UNION REPRESENTATIVE
This post is long because we want to ensure members are given as much information as possible to understand the issues that affect them, especially when it comes to negotiations and your Collective Agreement. A shorter version has sent by email to all Superstore members. Didn’t get the email? Update your contact information.
For many new members, we know that being in a union and understanding how a collective agreement works might not be familiar. Even those with lots of experience may not have noticed the Minimum Wage Adjustment clause or how it works.
We’re here to help with that.
In addition to detailed updates like this one, we are increasing our communication efforts available to union members, especially as the bargaining process approaches for Superstore. We want to start getting ready for that now.
In the coming weeks, look out for an early contract consultation survey for Superstore members, the first of many spaces we are planning for members to:
There will be many more details to come.
Remember, you can always contact your Union Representative with any questions you may have.
