Hi, I’m Jeff Traeger president of UFCW local 8:32 I’m here to report today on the announcement that Sobeys made yesterday June the ninth that they will be converting three Safeway stores to the discount banner Freshco those stores are located at Sargent and Wall, Pembina and McGilvery and the Niakwa Plaza. They will also be reopening a store that they closed in 2015 on Henderson Highway.
All of these stores will be closing this fall and reopening in the spring of 2021 as FreshCo stores. Now this affects many of our members over 300 of them but our collective agreement actually contains provisions that will allow the senior 20% in each store to stay working at the FreshCo at their Safeway compensation rate it will include the ability for both full-time and part-time to take buyouts although this will impact your ability to collect E.I. and it will also include the ability for people to bump into a different Safeway store to continue working under the Safeway banner.
Now I know there are questions that you may have about what the CBA or the collective bargaining agreement for FreshCo looks like you can go to member resources on our website and you can actually read the CBA and there were others that were asking questions about what it would be like to work at a FreshCo there are two FreshCo locations one in Kildonan and one on McPhillips and Jefferson that you can actually go to to see what the store looks like and to speak to UFCW members working in that store
If you’d like to talk to a union representative about the options that the company provided you in the letters that they gave all of our members yesterday you need to make an appointment due to COVID-19 your reps are Kim Ferris and Geoff Bergen you just need to contact the UFCW office and they will set up a meeting with you to discuss your options. You can also come back to this website for regular updates.
Thank you
Jeff Traeger
President UFCW Local 832
Visit the collective agreement page here and review the FreshCo CBA