A rchive Date
[ 23-02-2005 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Canada ]
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[Loyalty earned them nothing
By MICHELE MANDEL - Toronto Sun
April 9, 2000
This is the tale of the big box store and its ravenous appetite for the small friendly grocer. It is a story about the abuse of loyal employees by a bloodless parent corporation that should know better. And it may be a cautionary tale - because they just might have picked the wrong neighbourhood.
In just two weeks, City Farms grocery must shut its doors for the last time and be razed to the ground. Just a few metres north on Victoria Park Ave. is the huge, 80,000-sq.-ft. Loblaws Superstore that is to open in its place May 12.
Both City Farms and Loblaws, you see, are owned by the same parent company, though its staff have different unions. One would think that since many City Farms staff have almost 15 years experience serving the north Beaches, they would simply be transferred into the new store. One would think so. But one would be wrong.
Instead, the 13 full-time employees at City Farms have been told to line up at the job fairs and apply like everyone else. And if they should be hired, they can't expect to be taken on full time. Only part-time positions are available.
This from a grocer that surely could afford to be decent. Loblaw Cos., Canada's largest supermarket chain, reported almost $20 billion in sales last year and profits of $376 million.
"The majority of the employees have found employment, either with us or with other stores in the area," is all Loblaw spokesman Jeff Wilson will say now in its defence.
Staff and customers are rightfully outraged. City Farms isn't fancy, everyone admits, but it makes up for it with its warmth and friendliness. They talk about staff like Naresh Neersooriya, the associate produce manager, who's there first every morning, knows his customers by name and often volunteers to deliver their heavy bags on his way home from work.
He prides himself on the rapport he and his fellow employees have developed with the neighbourhood. "It was us who gained the customers for them," the nine-year veteran says bitterly as we sit in the McDonald's across the street. "It's just ugly. To give us a letter, thank you very much for your years of service, now there's the door and come back and apply? Is this the way a billion-dollar employer operates?"
He knows he's being forced out to make way for younger, inexperienced kids who will do the job for less money. With three children and a mortgage, he can't afford the $6-an-hour pay cut and half as many hours that would come with a part-time position at the new Loblaws - assuming he would even be hired.
Beside him, deli manager Mickey McDonald fights her fear and emotions to speak out. For 13 years, she's commuted all the way from Brampton because she loved her customers, her "family." She never believed the parent company could be so heartless. How foolish she feels now.
"When morale started to fall, I said, 'You're crazy, there's no way they're going to put up a great big store right next door and not take us'."
She is as hurt as Mark Fountain is angry. After working 12 years at City Farms, he refuses to stand in line behind people off the street for a chance at a job that should rightfully be his. "It's just insulting," says the angry 27-year-old supervisor. "After the years I've put into this store, this is how they treat me? With all their money and all their stores, they can't manage a transfer? There's a store across the road that's three times the size of ours. How hard can it be?"
Loblaws may have miscalculated when it decided to treat these employees as past due-date trash: Many City Farms shoppers are now threatening to boycott the new monster store. "It's a real family kind of atmosphere in City Farms. I mean, how many people can rhyme off the names of the staff at their grocery store?" asks customer Cathie White. "When something like this happens and they're not put at the top of the list, it's a dirty trick."
Tish Willekes agrees. "I think it's appalling the way they've treated the people there. Typically, in the Beaches, the reason so many of us stay is that you have a sense of small community. I'm just disappointed (Loblaws) missed the boat. Why even put up a monster store? It's not what most of us want."
As a lifelong Beacher, business executive Jeff Potter can attest to the neighbourhood's dismay at the loss of their small community grocer staff. "These people have become friends on a weekly basis. It's disgusting that veteran, loyal workers who've been there and kept customers coming back for years can be treated like that," says Potter, 50.
"So once City Farms is gone, I'm not going to Loblaws. I'm taking my $200 a week to a smaller, friendlier store whose owner I can call by name. I hope everyone does the same."
It's called loyalty - something Loblaws knows nothing about.
Michele can be reached by e-mail at michele.mandel@tor.sunpub.com
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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