After unionizing its first store in mid January this year, the Couche-Tard unionization campaign, organized by the Confédération des syndicats nationaux (CSN), received its first blow when a store at the corner of Beaubien and St. Denis was shut down six days after receiving its accreditation. Eleven workers lost their jobs. In a statement, the company, as expected, said that the store was closed because it was not profitable. In May 2009, a Couche-Tard store in Saint-Mathieu-de-Beloeil was also shut down when the workers were preparing to form a union, with the company citing the same reason. However, that store was quietly reopened last September.
Couche-Tard is not your average mom-and-pop convenience store. It is the largest multi-national convenience store operator, owning over 5,800 stores and a network of 3,700 licensees across Canada, the United States, Mexico, Japan, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, and Guam. It operates under many brands: Couche-Tard, Mac’s, Circle K, On the Run, Mike’s Mart, Beckers, Daisy Mart, Winks, Dépanneur 7 jours, etc. With roughly 53,000 workers under its payroll, it had a revenue of $16.4-billion and a net income of $300-million in 2010. The history of Couche-Tard is one filled with acquisition of other stores one year after another. Starting with its first store in Laval, Quebec in 1980, it is now the single biggest convenience store operator in the world.
In the past two years, it has seen its share price double to $27. Couche-Tard’s share price took off after it announced a wage freeze back in March 2009, citing the economic recession. In that same year, its profit more than doubled.
For decades, the workers of Couche-Tard had been a raw material for exploitation because they did not have a union. Minimum wage, non-existent job security, belligerent management, very little benefits and vacation time – these are the conditions faced by Couche-Tard workers, the majority of whom depend on this job as their sole income. But enough is enough. Couche-Tard workers are now taking a bold decision to organize, and because of this they are being punished by their employer. Couche-Tard is stepping up its pressure as it tries to intimidate the workers. The workplace is turning into an increasingly hostile environment as store managers become overly vigilant to find any wrongdoings that they can use to fire workers who are deemed supportive of the union. We often hear that unions are guilty of blackmailing and taking hostage of the poor employers, yet the real situation is that the workers are the ones being taken hostage by the employers as the latter are the ones who decide who gets a job or not, and therefore who gets to eat or not.
The struggle to unionize Couche-Tard workers has been an uphill battle because the CSN has to unionize the stores one by one and there are 560 of them in Quebec. So far, the CSN has managed to unionize five stores, with one being closed down six days after getting its union certification. The bosses will fight back relentlessly to prevent convenience-store workers from organizing because any successful campaign will set a precedent to others, and vice versa any failed campaign will demoralize them for years even decades to come. Most big unions have always been reluctant to take on this campaign because it is notoriously difficult to organize convenience-store workers. It is to CSN’s credit that they decide to take the risk and fight for the interest of these workers. The struggle will be long and arduous, but it cannot be otherwise.
