It’s about time, really

So, want further proof that a provincial election is on the horizon? Just weeks after proclaiming the controversial four-on-the-floor law that limits grocery stores to four employees after 5 p.m. on weekends and after 9 p.m. on weekdays would unequivocally stay, Quebec Economic Development Minister Raymond Bachand pulled a 180 and said the government would be willing to change the legislation as long as grocery-store owners and the unions can come to a compromise on the hours. Now, the United Food and Commercial Workers’ Union of Quebec, who represent the majority of grocery-store employees across the province, is asking that stores close at 9 p.m. every night so its union members can have a family life, as well as giving workers seven holidays a year. Grocery-store owners are not eager to give in to these particular demands. In fact, the association of provincial grocers, currently negotiating with the union, have proposed their own plan, recommending stores stay open until 10 p.m. because 200,000 people across Quebec do their shopping between 9 and 10 p.m. They also proposed giving workers four holidays a year. Giving employees seven holidays a year would mean many stores would be forced to close on big holidays such as Christmas and Easter.

We respectfully propose a compromise that has already been seen in other swing- and night-shift-related jobs — simply put, a sliding scale that simply lets the worker be compensated for the relative annoyance of working hours the rest of the world might find unpalatable.

Give day workers one wage per hour, then the longer and later they work, the more they will make. If en employee works holidays, pay them double time. If they work every holiday in a year, give them triple time. Make it economically feasible for an employee to say ‘you know what? It just makes fiscal sense to work the late shift.’

It creates a win-win-win situation for grocers. The extra labour costs will surely be offset by increased consumer satisfaction — that is, no more having to wait an hour in line to buy something to eat for supper on a weekend. The employees won’t have to deal with surly customers berating them for a situation over which they have no control, and the unions will have made their people more money, which is its mandate. Everybody wins. The law is a bad one; its effects are so pervasive that the lines on Saturday and Sunday afternoons in West Island grocery stores have become unbearable as well, as consumers rush to get their shopping done before the four-on-the-floor law takes effect. If you happen to time things badly and you get to the check-out line around 5 p.m., well, let’s just say you’re going to get awfully familiar with the antics of Britney & Kevin, Tom & Katie and Paris & whoever in the pages of the tabloids, because you’re going to be there for a while.

While Bachand is undoubtedly making the right decision to let the grocers and the union get started on an entente, one has to wonder if the timing of the about-face had anything to do with Bachand’s wife sending him out for some last-minute dinner items on a Saturday, or if it’s his bosses in the government that told him to get started on some happy-voter projects in preparation for a spring election. Either way, it’s a change that was long overdue.