Canada’s fast food giants seem to be nervous about low-wage workers exercising their right to collective bargaining.
Representatives from A&W and McDonald’s gathered with other major corporations and industry associations at the Toronto Airport Hilton earlier this summer for a conference organized by the anti-union group LabourWatch.
LabourWatch counts Restaurants Canada, which calls itself “the voice” of Canada’s fast food industry, as one of its member associations and one Restaurant Canada executive sits on LabourWatch’s board of directors.
In a recording obtained exclusively by PressProgress, A&W Canada executives told the conference some of the tricks they use to keep their company “union-free.”
Nancy Wuttunee, Vice-President of A&W Canada’s department of “People Potential,” and Mike Atkinson, A&W’s regional VP for eastern Canada, explained their company keeps a “watch list” of franchises that are “high risk” for unionizing.
One thing that could put an A&W franchise on its “watch list,” Atkinson said, is if the “the neighbour next door” is a workplace where “most of the folks are unionized.”
“Maybe you’re on the watch list because you’re in a really high risk area,” Wuttnnee explained. “It’s not always about what you do, it might be where you are.”
“For example, we operate in some food courts where everyone else in that food court is unionized,” Wuttunnee said.
Tagging: @ontarionewsnow @abpoli @politicsofcanada
Gosh, but just knowing that this company will go out of its way to prevent workers from having the protection and representation that a union provides makes me never ever want to shop at any of its stores. Fucking bastards.