Earlier this month, Local 401 of the United Food and Commercial Workers published an update on their website regarding contract negotiations for workers Red Lobster workers in Edmonton.
Back in 2018, workers at the Red Lobster location on 171 Street NW in Edmonton unionized with UFCW Local 401. Three years later, they negotiated their first collective agreement, which expired in March 2023 and was effective onlyt to September 2021, which is when it was ratified.
The next collective agreement, which is the most recent one, was settled in March 2024, a year after the previous one expired. It, too, was retroactive to ratification, not to the expiration of the previous one. This agreement expired this past March.
According to the aforementioned update, the bargaining team for the workers met with Red Lobster reps for two days in September to begin negotiating on a new collective agreement.
Red Lobster did not include monetary proposals in their initial offer; although the workers’ bargaining team did.
Workers have offered implementing a minimum wage of $22.30 an hour, which is the living wage in Edmonton. Or at least it was last year. The new wage would be across the board but would not come into effect until January 2027.
Currently, wages are frozen at March 2024 rate, not having received wage increases last year or next year. Some workers are being paid only $15.00 an hour, the same pay as when they first unionized.
In fact, servers have received no wage increases since ratification, which was over 5 years ago, and bartenders, server assistants, silverware rollers, and hosts got a single 10¢ raise in their first contract to bump them up to just $15.20 an hour, which is where they are still.
All workers, even the restaurant supervisors, are making under $20 an hour, so a $22.30 minimum wage would be a huge increase.
Keep in mind that $22.30 an hour would include tips. The base rate for gratuity classifications would be $18.00 an hour and non-gratuity would be $20.30 an hour.
The workers’ bargaining team has also offered wage premiums of 6% for line cooks and alley coordinators, 10% for restaurant supervisors, and 12% for certified restaurant supervisors, which would be on top of their base rate.
On top of all that, the workers proposed a 5% across-the-board wage increase in January 2028.
Here are some other proposals the workers have put on the table for the new collective agreement.
The union would get 30 minutes with new hires for union orientation. Currently, they get only 15 minutes.
They have told Red Lobster that they want them to remit 16¢ per hour per worker into UFCW’s education and training fund.
If agreed to, a worker’s disciplinary file would be cleared after 12 months, down from the current 24 months.
Under the current agreement, workers are guaranteed 3 hours per shift. The workers want to increase this to 4 hours.
The workers’ bargaining team want to add 2 more holidays—Heritage Day and National Day for Truth and Reconciliation—to the list of general holidays. This list is what the employer uses to determine stat pay. This would increase the number of holidays on the list from 10 to 12.
Vacation entitlements would change if workers get their way.
| Vacation entitlement | Length of service Current | Length of service Proposed |
|---|---|---|
| 2 weeks | 1–5 years | 1–2 years |
| 3 weeks | 5–10 years | 2–6 years |
| 4 weeks | 10–15 years | 6–10 years |
| 5 weeks | 15+ years | 10+ years |
Workers qualify for the benefit plan if they work 30 hours per week under the most recent collective agreement. They want this dropped to 15 hours per week.
They proposed 12 unpaid days of leave for gynaecological health per year, as well as free menstrual products available in all worker washrooms. They also want 10 days of paid domestic violence leave per year.
Finally, they proposed the following leave of absences:
| Critically ill child care | 35 weeks |
| Critically ill parent care | 15 weeks |
| End-of-life care | 26 weeks |
| Death/disappearance of child | 52 weeks |
Red Lobster wants to combine some positions. They want server setup workers to become servers and host and silverware rollers to become server assistants.
They oppose the 4-hour minimum shift length that the workers proposed.
The employer wants to implement a new 3-day per week minimum for workers to be considered for shift availability. There is no current minimum in the collective agreement.
Finally, Red Lobster wants to expand the ability for managers to perform bargaining unit labour to include “cases of emergency, unforeseen circumstances, or unexpected increases in business levels”.
The two parties will not meet again until December to continue bargaining. They also have dates scheduled for January and February.
