In case you hadn’t noticed, most of the LCBO is closed for business.
In midsummer, in the middle of a heat wave, some 680 stores are shuttered by a strike — have been since last week.
What’s a parched drinker to do? Where’s a busy party planner to go?
Don’t panic. But spare a thought, if not a drop, for the future of the LCBO — and its workers.
As Doug Ford boasted this week, there is no shortage of alternative locations to get what you need in this post-Prohibition province. In a video released Monday, the teetotalling premier clutches a can of craft beer after opening his laptop to show you precisely how to search an online map for alcohol sales near you.
Provocative, to be sure. But that’s Ontario’s new reality.
In summers past, the stakes were so much higher. The media whipped Ontarians into a frenzy of panic-buying at the mere mention of a possible strike.
Front page headlines counted down the days to the bargaining deadline. Drinkers lined up around the block to stock up in case of a shutdown.
Until recently, the LCBO held a virtual monopoly on wine and spirits sales. Which is why the government of the day paid higher wages to avoid leaving Ontarians high and dry.
Times change. Now, people can get high on legal cannabis, visit 389 rural LCBO agency stores, check out what’s left of the Beer Store, shop for beer and wine at hundreds of supermarkets, try thousands of local bars or restaurants for takeout booze, or order online.
Times keep changing. Within months, pre-mixed coolers are coming, and beer will pop up on even more shelves in thousands of convenience stores.
Which is why the Ontario Public Service Employees Union has gone on strike. Not just for more money, but more job security for its members — and less availability for drinkers.
At the very time the LCBO is losing market share, and its workers are losing bargaining leverage, OPSEU has walked off the job in hopes of saving jobs. Union president JP Hornick argues the premier looms like a ghost at the table, diluting the LCBO’s clout by allowing more booze to be sold by more competitors across the province.
There is some truth to that analysis. But trying to persuade Ontarians they should go back in time, to a time of fewer outlets, fewer choices and fewer hard coolers?
That’s a hard sell. Will Ontarians buy it?
Hornick has made the fight both political and personal as OPSEU tries to win the “hearts and minds” of drinkers with established tastes. The union leader blames Ford for weakening the LCBO through a phantom privatization, thus undermining the multibillion-dollar revenue stream that underwrites hospitals and social services.
I argued long ago for beer (and wine) in supermarkets, on the grounds that the privately owned Beer Store and the government-owned LCBO were in an unholy duopoly. I never bought into Ford’s crusade for convenience stores, but he has won two elections and never made a secret of his obsessions as he positions himself for a third campaign.
While I criticized the Beer Store for dilapidated facilities and declining service, I’ve always defended the LCBO as an imperfect but improvable government enterprise with economies of scale and knowledgeable staff. But it’s hard to argue, in a time of retail revolutions, that you can put the toothpaste back in the tube.
We no longer trek to central government post offices now that pharmacy kiosks stay open late, and we no longer believe internet gambling can be stopped. The Beer Store was an anachronism and the LCBO cannot be frozen in time.
One person’s privatization is another drinker’s decentralization. One public sector union’s fight to keep its membership numbers high is another private sector union’s opportunity to sign up more supermarket workers selling booze (corner stores will remain a side show).
It’s hard to fathom the people of Ontario rallying in support of the union’s top demand — banning pre-mixed cocktails in supermarkets. Just as it’s hard to imagine them rioting over the closure of LCBO stores throughout the summer, as they might have decades ago.
OPSEU boasts that it can dig into a deep strike fund and is digging in its heels. But the government is pointing the way to alternative outlets.
Many of the LCBO’s newer staff have to work long and hard to get benefits and decent shifts — the myth of overpaid stock clerks is increasingly outdated. But like retail workers everywhere, they will find it a hard battle to fight and win.
WestJet’s vital maintenance workers brought the airline to its knees by striking hard on the Canada Day holiday weekend — maximizing their bargaining leverage. Days later, LCBO staff are having far less impact (much like the TVO workers who went off the air for months last year).
That’s the reality of labour relations — it’s not just about justice, but who has the power. And the power of persuasion.
