Stella’s Osborne to unionize

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This article was published 19/12/2018 (2101 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Employees at Stella’s Osborne Street location have voted in favour of joining a union.

The United Food and Commercial Workers announced Thursday night the results of the vote — the first of two scheduled for Stella’s restaurant chain locations in Winnipeg.

“UFCW Local 832 is proud to announce that the workers at Stella’s Osborne have voted yes to joining UFCW Local 832,” the union said in a brief statement.

“It’s pretty significant. Eighty-six per cent of the workers who voted, voted for the union, which is pretty high,” local president Jeff Traeger said. “The next step for us is to call a meeting with our new members… and get them their first contract.”

There are 29 employees at Stella’s Osborne who will be represented by the union. Of those, 23 voted Thursday — and 20 voted in favour of joining the union, according to UFCW figures.

UFCW will represent all of the servers, dishwashers, cooks, hosts and baristas at the Osborne location, and officials said they plans to pursue a first contract with management early in the new year.

A similar vote is scheduled Friday for the Stella’s location on Sherbrook Street.

However, Traeger said he wasn’t sure if the Sherbrook vote would be released or delayed, pending issues to be resolved between staff and management at the Manitoba Labour Board.

Few restaurants in Canada are unionized, and the Stella’s drive took place in lockstep with a series of disastrous revelations of #MeToo-type harassment of employees at the popular chain.

“Generally speaking, stand-alone restaurants are not commonly unionized. In talking to these folks, there’s issues around scheduling and gratuities but certainly the genesis of coming forward at this time had to do with that ‘Not my Stella’s’ (social media) campaign,” Traeger said.

Not My Stella’s compiled grievances from current and former staff, and its Instagram account filled with hundreds of postings alleging sexual harassment, discrimination, bullying and abuse of staff at the popular, seven-location local restaurant chain.

Traeger was coy about any union activity at the other five locations. “I can’t talk about that. We’ve got to careful about talking about those types of things,” the UFCW Local 832 president said.

In a statement, the union gave credit to the workers for organizing the vote and to “those who started the Not My Stella’s campaign.”

“It takes great courage to stand up to your employer and to call out inappropriate behaviour in the workplace, the strength these workers have shown is extraordinary,” Traeger said.

“We’re proud to be the union that will represent them going forward, and we look forward to working with these members in order to address long-standing issues at Stella’s.”

alexandra.paul@freepress.mb.ca