history

In June 2005, unionized employees of the LCBO, members of the
former Ontario Liquor Boards Employees Union (OLBEU), joined
OPSEU. As a result they have now been integrated into OPSEU’s
Broader Public Sector (BPS). In July 2005, just after LCBO workers
joined OPSEU, a major membership mobilization campaign and
strike vote led to the signing of a new collective agreement with the
LCBO just hours before the strike deadline. Then in January 2006,
LBED members were reorganized into 29 new “stand alone” LBED
locals and 15 composite locals.

Continuing the fight against privatization

The LBED Division has faced several challenges: of these,
privatization remains among the most pressing. In July 2005, faced
with the threat of a province-wide strike at the LCBO, Ontario
Finance Minister Greg Sorbara made the right decision about
privatization. “Let me be clear — we are not selling the LCBO,”
Sorbara said. “We will not turn the LCBO into an income trust. And,
we will not permit selling of beer and wine in corner stores.” But in
May 2006, Infrastructure Minister David Caplan announced the
opening of 20 new “agency stores” around the province. Agency
stores sell beer, wine, and liquor out of gas stations, grocery
stores, and yes, corner stores. They do not employ LCBO staff.
And they’re not small operations, either — the largest 90 agency
stores have average annual sales of $1.2 million, with many selling
$2 million or more.

Agency stores — privatization through the back door

The agency store program started more than 20 years ago to serve
remote communities in Northern Ontario. In the 1990s, the program
moved south, then the number of agency stores more than
doubled. Agency stores are a direct threat to OPSEU members’
jobs by siphoning off LCBO sales to private operators and reducing
public revenue. They help set the stage for wholesale privatization
of the LCBO in the future. And, perhaps worst of all, they put
community safety at risk, by putting profits first. This spring, the
division released the results of an independent financial analysis of
the agency store program, showing the province loses more than
$16 million annually to private agency store operators. The same
study showed that gradually replacing the 90 largest agency stores
with real, publicly-run LCBO outlets would generate up to $340
million in additional public revenue over a 10-year period. LBED
members are now actively lobbying their MPPs to build support for
their campaign to put a freeze on agency stores and keep the
LCBO public.

Key challenges ahead

The merger of the old Ontario Liquor Board Employees Union
(OLBEU) into OPSEU will be fully completed when the new Liquor
Board Employees Division (LBED) holds its first divisional meeting
in June of this year, right after the BPS Conference. Besides
passing its divisional bylaws and bargaining procedures, local
delegates to the June divisional meeting will elect the leaders who
will help set the stage for the next round of bargaining with the
LCBO in 2009.