The Swiss Chalet Workers: Part 5
Life in Labour's Mainstream
In the spring of 1985 the UFCW brought an extraordinary organizing campaign to an abrupt halt just weeks before the Ontario Labour Relations Board was to process its 25 applications for certification at Swiss Chalet Restaurants across Ontario. In a deal with CURRE, the union that organized the restaurants in the late 1970's with a little covert help from the employer, and HERE, with which CURRE hastily merged at the beginning of the UFCW's campaign, the UFCW withdrew all of its applications for certification and a dozen or so unfair labour practice charges. In exchange it received voluntary recognition from the company for 9 stores. The company's largesse, in addition to 4 stores at which it had already been certified, gave the UFCW a total of 13 locations. The CURRE-HERE combination walked away with the remaining 42 Ontario stores. Two years of campaigning ended not with a bang but in backroom whimpers.
Backroom wheeling and dealing aside however, the fact was that as of 1985, workers at 60 restaurants of a major national chain were now represented by two of North America's largest service industry unions. Surely there was nowhere to go but up? Let's see how the workers have fared.
The Heavies Hit the Table
Negotiations for a new collective agreement between the Swiss Chalet Employers' Association (the Swiss Chalet franchisees' umbrella organization) and CURRE-HERE began in the spring of 1985. The talks got off to a rocky start and did not go well. A critical issue for CURRE-HERE was voluntary recognition for new stores. An expansion of the Swiss Chalet chain was underway with a dozen or so new stores expected to open in Ontario alone over the next couple of years. CURRE-HERE wanted the company to continue its practice of automatically folding these into a master agreement as it had done with CURRE prior to the UFCW's raid. The company flatly refused. To make matters worse, despite its seemingly strong financial position, the company was asking for concessions in the form of a two-tier wage scale. As a strike deadline approached in August, CURRE-HERE mobilized for a province-wide strike. A settlement was reached however, a few days past the legal strike deadline.
Despite the strike mobilization, the size of CURRE-HERE's membership and the pressure that could be exerted on a company in the hospitality business during the busy summer period, the new agreement (a three year deal from 1985 to 1988) contained little in the way of improvements over the previous CURRE 1981 master contract. The vast majority of bargaining had been taken up with the voluntary recognition issue which, in the end, CURRE-HERE conceded. In some areas, the new agreement actually eroded the entitlements workers previously had. The new agreement treated each franchised store as a separate employer. Workers could not post into jobs at other stores without loss of seniority. The highest paid classification (Cook) was removed from the bargaining unit. The seniority bonus provided under the previous agreement disappeared. Most significantly, the new agreement contained a two-tier wage structure. Existing workers received increases of 4% in each of three years but newly hired workers would earn on average 20% less.
The UFCW commenced bargaining for its 13 stores shortly after the agreement with CURRE-HERE was finalized. Local 175 signed a virtually identical agreement, complete with the two-tier wage scale, within a few days. This pattern of "me too" bargaining was to continue in ensuing years with CURRE-HERE taking the lead and UFCW following in its footsteps.
A number of Swiss Chalet's opened in Ontario in the late 1980's and operated non-union. It would appear that the wages and working conditions at these non-union operations were the same as those set out in the CURRE-HERE and UFCW agreements - a factor that would make organizing difficult. Nonetheless, HERE did attempt to organize a number of the new non-union stores and was successful in the case of a couple of those. A store on Main Street in Hamilton was one of the first and was also the site of the first-ever (and possibly the only) Swiss Chalet picket line - an information picket in the summer of 1986. An agreement was subsequently signed off for this store and a handful of others but these were individual agreements, and not part of the province-wide master contract.
During the mid to late 1980's, CURRE-HERE also organized a number of new stores in western Canada (in Winnipeg, Regina, Vancouver and Victoria) and, in each case, negotiated separate agreements with similar language but lower rates of pay and reduced benefit entitlements than those in Ontario. The locations, far from CURRE-HERE's Ontario base, were difficult to service. CURRE-HERE would eventually enter into a "servicing agreement" with Vancouver-based HERE Local 40 for its western stores.
The unremarkable 1985 agreement was followed by another unremarkable agreement in 1988. Not much seemed to change for the Swiss Chalet workers. CURRE's affiliation with HERE had brought them a new President, Tom Rees, the International Organizer who brokered the merger in 1984 but beyond that, it was hard to say what else was different. Bill Whyte, CURRE's General Manager, was still on the scene, looking after the day-to-day operation of CURRE-HERE and running his armoured courier ventures. Whyte's significant other continued to run the union's health and welfare plan. Whyte's brother and Rees's son, held various positions with CURRE-HERE before moving on to work for other HERE locals. The union office continued to be housed in a remote industrial park, next door to Whyte's other businesses.
The return of CURRE
Sometime in the fall of 1991, Whyte led a resurrected CURRE (the old independent, pre-merger CURRE) on a raid of CURRE-HERE's Ontario stores. Over a period of a few months, Whyte appears to have single-handedly signed up enough workers to decertify CURRE-HERE and get automatic certification for CURRE at 36 stores. Surprisingly, HERE did not contest these applications, choosing simply to abandon its bargaining rights at these stores. The UFCW did not appear to have involved itself in this raid and certainly did not come to the aid of CURRE-HERE, although it did go out of its way to help CURRE trustee one of its locals covering two British Columbia stores, one in Victoria and one in Burnaby, during this period.
In B.C., confronted with a raid by HERE Local 40, Whyte turned to Ex- UFCW Canadian Director and by then International Vice-President of International Affairs Cliff Evans for assistance. In a rare gesture of brotherly love, Evans assigned one of his own UFCW Local 777 Reps to carry out the trusteeship on Whyte's behalf. At around this time, the UFCW's Swiss Chalet restaurants were moved from Local 175 to Local 206. Whyte and the UFCW would grow even closer in the years to come. In the interim however, Whyte would go on to achieve a level of notoriety that no story about CURRE would be complete without.
The Great Stick-Up
Notwithstanding their interesting history and untapped bargaining potential, the Swiss Chalet workers were and continue to be invisible to the media. Few people would have had any idea that Swiss Chalet workers were union members were it not for events that unfolded in relation to Bill Whyte's armoured courier business in 1992. Late that year, a spectacular daylight robbery by four armed gunmen netted some $7 million at the offices of National Armoured, an armoured courier business run by Whyte and Toronto labour lawyer, Steven McCormack. The four gunmen were arrested within a few days of the robbery; among them were CURRE business agent, Frank Ragni, and John Fullerton, Whyte's brother-in-law and National's Security Director. Ragni, who was also an employee of National Armoured, continued servicing Swiss Chalet members during the four years that he was out on bail awaiting trial. Charges against him and the three other accused were eventually withdrawn in 1996, when Fullerton recanted an earlier confession he'd made to police. No further arrests were made and the stolen funds have never been recovered. This 1997 article from The Toronto Star sheds additional light on the story. Ragni is currently a business rep with UFCW Local 206.
CURRE on the market again
In 1997 Bill Whyte merged CURRE with the UFCW. The merger brought the UFCW an additional 50 Swiss Chalet Restaurants in Ontario. Virtually all of the large chain's restaurants were now locked up under one collective agreement with the largest service industry union in North America.
By the time negotiations for its post-merger collective agreement in 1998, UFCW, Local 206 was in a position of great advantage. It's bargaining unit had more than quadrupled in size (from 15 stores to 66). It represented workers at all Swiss Chalet restaurants in Ontario (a bargaining unit of about 3000). Those members had voted 90% in favour of a strike. Nonetheless, all of this bargaining leverage resulted in little change to the collective agreement. In fact, in the area of wages, a reduction to the start rate of the lower tier was agreed to. For the first 30 days of employment, workers in the waitress/waiter, bus person, take out and dishwasher classifications would now get the provincial minimum wage.
What kind of deal is this?
Nearly all of the clauses of Local 206's agreement with "the employers" (each store is treated as a separate employer) resemble those of the 1981 CURRE master agreement, which was itself a reflection of the original CURRE contracts negotiated hurriedly in 1978-79. Language in the contract gives management broad discretion in decisions concerning transfers, job postings and layoffs. The Human Resources Department of the company has the final disposition on what constitutes a satisfactory reason for absence from work. The only major language improvement appears to be a clause that allows workers to maximize their hours of work based on their seniority.
Ours now, yours later: Although it unable to get the workers much in the wage of wage increases, the union was successful in getting itself an eight cent per hour (rising to ten cents per hour in 1999) contribution, based on all full and part time hours worked, to its Heath and Education Fund. Ironically, serving staff hired under the current collective agreement will have to wait 2 years before receiving a 10-cent per hour pay increase. As if to add insult to injury, the only other significant change from the agreements of a decade ago is that the word "employee" has been replaced with the juvenile term "teammate" (which is also misspelled throughout the body of the agreement).
Monetary entitlements have remained virtually unchanged in 20 years. There have been no improvements to paid holidays or overtime pay and minimal improvements to vacations and cleaning allowances. There is no paid sick time, no pensions and benefit levels (open to full time staff only) appear to have remained unchanged except that life insurance has increased to $20,000. Maternity leave is at the provincial minimum.
In some respects the UFCW's 1998 agreement even falls short of the 1981 CURRE master contract.
A reference to fair wages, hours and working conditions has been removed from the Purpose clause.
The union representation language specifically denies stewards and other bargaining unit member's pay for time lost from work while negotiating or attending arbitration hearings. The CURRE 1981 agreement contained no such provision.
The arbitration provisions prohibit arbitrators from exercising their power to extend grievance procedure time limits.
Permanent "teammates" are permitted to have a Steward present at their dismissal and the Steward attends as a witness only.
The wage scale in the UFCW's Swiss Chalet agreement is a service-driven progression scale. There are six classifications (Kitchen Help, Cashier/Bartender, Dishwasher, Take Out, Bus person and Waitress/Waiter). The wage scale calls for a start rate, and subsequent wages increments at 12, 24, 36, 48 and 60 months of service. In the 1998 agreement the start rate was reduced to provincial minimum wage for the first 30 days of employment and an additional step (60 months) was added in the progression.
The two tier scale first introduced in 1985, has evolved into a three tier scale: A percentage increase for workers who have reached the top rate of their classification, the 2nd tier from the previous agreement, and a new lower tier for workers hired after ratification. Students are a separate category and are paid provincial minimum wage (versus minimum wage plus 10 cents, the provision under the 1981 CURRE agreement). On the plus side, the agreement contains a provision stating that "the above rates are minimum rates", Store managers can pay more, if they want to.
The wage increases negotiated in 1998 are not retroactive to the expiry of the previous agreement and become effective only on the date of ratification.
The agreement becomes effective June 1, 1998 but the first across the board percentage increase for "above scale" workers doesn't kick in until June 1, 1999, with subsequent increases June 1, 2000 and June 1, 2001 (the agreement's expiry date). The increases to be implemented on that date (2% serving staff and 2.5% for kitchen staff) are higher than those in the previous two years (1% for serving staff and 2% for kitchen staff). Presumably, if the workers were to decertify the union, they would forego these last and highest increases. This is the Classifications and Rates of Pay article from the current collective agreement between Local 206 and the Swiss Chalet employers.
Whatever tier the workers are paid from, the wage rates are low and the increments along the progression scale are small. That notwithstanding, the 1995 - 1998 agreement contains a Letter of Understanding stating;
"It is agreed and understood that the Company has raised concerns with regards to the magnitude of the increases between the 36 Month and 48 Month Rate. It is agreed by the parties that if at the expiration of the Collective Agreement these increases are determined to be excessive due to unreasonable hardship on the financial operation of the unit the rates will become subject to negotiations."
The Waitress/Waiter hourly rate starts at $5.95 per hour (the provincial minimum wage for liquor servers) and progresses to $6.20 after 60 months of service (that's a 25 cent increase after 5 years!). By comparison, Local 206 President John Hurley and Secretary Treasurer Frank Kelly, earn annual salaries of $111,756.00.
It's worth noting that historically, the Swiss Chalet's like many service industry organizations had a gender-based division of labour. Women were concentrated in dining room (serving) positions while men were employed in kitchen (food preparation) jobs. In the 1998 round of bargaining, the Waitress/Waiter category. Lowest on the pay scale, received a 1% wage increase compared to 2% for kitchen staff. If indeed the gendered division of labour continues to exist at these stores, this kind of differential will only serve to widen the equity gap.
After two decades of being passed from hand to hand by union representatives - large and small - these workers have achieved little above the minimum protections provided under employment legislation. This, despite their activist nature, despite the fact that their representatives for the better part of 20 years have been two large international unions and despite the incredible leverage those unions have over a large and very profitable company. Clearly it has been the parent company and its franchisees that have benefited the most from the Swiss Chalet collective agreements. Considering the high rate of staff turnover that is standard in the restaurant industry, it would be safe to assume that the majority of Swiss Chalet workers are paid from the latest/lowest tier - one that most likely resembles that of many non-union restaurants. Benefits and entitlements are minimal and have not improved in any tangible way since the early 1980's. Management flexibility is subject to little in the way of restraint.
UFCW Local 206's agreement expired in June of this year. It is hard to imagine what the union and the employers are negotiating about. A percentage wage increase went into effect for the "off scale" workers as of June 1, 2001. The rest of the workers simply continue on through the wage progression of the lower tier or the lowest tier until they reach the top rate. Given the progressions top out at 48 and 60 months respectively, few workers will be in line for any kind of additional increase for a very long time. For the UFCW, however, the workers continue to bring in dues, assessments and contributions to the various union Funds. UFCW Local 206 continues to organize new Swiss Chalet restaurants as they open. One of the latest stores to be organized by 206 is the Swiss Chalet at the corner of Keele St. and Wilson Ave. in Toronto - ironically and somehow fittingly, in the shadow of the Howard Johnson Plaza Hotel, featured in our recent Haunted Houses of Labour article.
The sad reality is that the Swiss Chalet workers are no further ahead than when they were organized by CURRE in the late 1970's. There is neither the will nor the ability on the part of the union to progress much beyond the maintenance of minimal benefits and a grievance procedure that, at best, will ensure that they are not deprived of those. In the end, it is the business and the small cadre of powerful men at the head of the business unions who have over the years bought, sold and traded in these workers, who have reaped all of the rewards.
Coming Up Next: A story that needs to be told & understood
Sources for this article:
Cara Operations posts gains in earnings and sales, The Toronto Star, July 7, 1987
Cara profit climbing at 'double digit' rate Looks to expand after last year's restructuring, The Toronto Star, June 29, 1995
CURRE, CURRE-HERE Local 88 and UFCW Swiss Chalet collective agreements 1985 through 2001.
Here's one analyst's view of the top stocks for 1987, The Toronto Star, December 28, 1986
Lloyd's London, Non-Marine Underwriters v. National Armoured Ltd., Ontario Court General Division, November 18, 1996
Swiss Chalet workers vote in favour of strike, Peterborough Examiner, July 20, 1998
Where's the loot, The Toronto Star, November 27, 1997
Other information from confidential sources with direct knowledge of the events described.