On Monday August 20th, workers at the Richmond BC Ikea store hit the picket lines in their first ever strike. Teamsters local 213 members are on the picket line in what is turning out to be a very important strike. This struggle carries with it the possibility, not only to raise the living standards of workers at Ikea’s flagship store in Canada, but also to spread the union to other stores. It has the potential to deal a decisive blow to the two-tiered wage system that has been plaguing unionized retail workers for years. This battle must be won.
There are over 250,000 workers in the retail industry in British Columbia and only a small handful of them are union members. Over the last two decades, the bosses have unleashed an all-out assault against retail workers’ wages and benefits. Wages have steadily declined everywhere from large grocery stores to small shops. A cashier with one year’s experience at Ikea made more money twenty years ago than a cashier with the same experience does today. This sorry state of affairs is now being challenged by 300 workers at Ikea.
The two-tiered wage structure has been used, most notably by the big grocery chains, to push down the wages of new employees without provoking opposition from the existing workers. This scheme creates two different pay scales: one for existing workers and one for new workers. People doing the same jobs in the same stores will end up being paid vastly different sums of money for doing the same work. In this way, over a period of several years, management can push out the higher paid senior workers and replace them with cheap labour.
The stand of the Teamsters against this unfair system is of extreme importance for the retail industry. Finally, a union that is willing to stand up to the bosses’ wage restraints! If this struggle is won, it will point the way forward for workers across the industry, proving that it is possible to win real improvements.
Anyone standing on the picket line with the workers will see a steady stream of cars turning around in the parking lot upon realization that the store is closed. It is a dramatic illustration of the amount of money the company is losing. New furniture isn’t exactly cheap, even at Ikea, and most of these people could have been expected to spend hundreds of dollars. But these potential customers are not just being turned away; they are being directed by security to the non-union store in Coquitlam. This has caused an entirely new set of problems.
On the one hand the existence of the unorganized store lessens the impact of the strike in Richmond, but there is another side to this coin. Workers at the other Ikea store are being forced to work long hours to try and keep up with the sudden influx of customers. Working conditions are deteriorating as Ikea greedily tries to bring in as much cash as they can from the back-to-school rush. This provides the Teamsters with a golden opportunity to organize these workers. A visible campaign against forced overtime should be launched to win over the workers at the Coquitlam store and show the public exactly how Ikea is treating its employees.
If the workers at Ikea are to succeed, they need the support of the entire labour movement. Community support and visits to the picket line can raise the spirit of the workers on the front line. The strike should be raised and discussed by unions representing other retail workers. The United Food and Commercial Workers in particular, that has tens of thousands of members under this same two-tiered wage scheme, should take the opportunity to mobilize their members in support of the Ikea workers; this strike has important lessons for them.
Daily meetings of striking workers should be organized to allow the rank and file to take ownership of the strike. In this way, they can keep up to date on the latest news while finding new and creative ways to bolster the picket lines. Public meetings should be organized to explain the importance of this strike to the general public. Militant action is the only way forward.
Victory to the Ikea workers!
Smash the two-tiered wage scale!
