Guelph’s Canadian Automobile Association (CAA) location on Paisley Road remained closed on Tuesday as workers took to the picket line to voice their concerns with frozen wages, understaffing issues and a general uneasiness with how the corporate structure was impeding their quality of life.
CAA national confirmed in an email that since Friday CAA Stores in Kitchener, Waterloo, Cambridge, Guelph, and London are closed due to a strike by members of Teamsters Local 879.
The striking employees currently number 18 and are spread across the five CAA sites.
“What they’ve offered on the table, and we’ve realized the travel industry has taken a beating, but the workload that my associates have had in travel and the membership consultants have had to endure through the stores opening up and getting back to work with rebookings and travels ramping back up again, and staying after hours and helping and not getting paid for it, taking calls home and not getting paid for it and they’re offering basically nothing in the first two years of a collective agreement,” said Lenna Phenix, business representative for Teamsters Local Union 879.
The offer on the table for the wage increase would have the workers' wages frozen for two years with the third year seeing 1 one per cent wage increase.
“That’s what they’re offering and they wonder why we are here,” said Phenix.
Currently, the CAA store in Guelph is staffed by five employees, with some employees saying their number has been significantly reduced as people take stress leaves or quit and no replacements are rehired.
Phenix said CAA locations have been losing people without replacing them or not calling back part-time employees.
“They’re (workers) already inundated with work and they just want to pile more work on them, but no more money,” said Phenix.
Workers along the picket line said they were already subject to a $3 an hour loss in income as they were unable to hit the critical sales threshold due to the mass reduction of travellers.
"There is no impact to our roadside assistance to members, and members will be able to access almost all in-store services by calling 1-866-323-2414, by visiting other retail locations or online," said an emailed statement from CAA South Central Ontario.
“CAA has long maintained a positive relationship with its representative unions and continually seeks to address issues that may arise with respect to the bargaining agreements in place. Throughout the pandemic we have made extraordinary commitments to minimize the pandemic’s impact to our associates. This included a commitment of no layoffs and a decision to invest in training and licensing opportunities for retail and travel associates to transition into new careers at CAA.
"As the travel industry and our retail business show no signs of recovery, we are disappointed that Teamsters Local 879 has chosen to strike but are respectful of the relationship with our representative unions and are committed to attempting to resolve this labour dispute in good faith.”
