Union raps Wal-Mart move to close unionized shop

Union leaders are denouncing Wal-Mart's decision to close a Gatineau tire-and-lube shop just two months after workers there won a precedent-setting collective agreement, the first for any Wal-Mart anywhere.

In August, an arbitrator imposed a contract at the shop on Maloney Boulevard, just across the river from Ottawa.

On Thursday, Wal-Mart said it would close the garage, where five mechanics work, rather than raise the prices it charges customers.

"Wal-Mart thinks a cheap oil change is more important than the Canadian Constitution," said Wayne Hanley, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers Canada, which represents the workers.

Wal-Mart said the contract imposed in August increased the mechanics' wages by more than 30 per cent.

"Our wages were competitive prior to the collective agreement. And this collective agreement makes the situation unworkable," said Yanik Deschênes, a director of Wal-Mart in Quebec.

However, a Quebec Federation of Labour spokesman, Dino Lemay, said Gatineau doesn't have a minimum wage for mechanics, like the ones in many other Quebec cities.

He said the minimum wages in those cities are higher than the ones Wal-Mart workers got under their union contract.

"It works for Montreal, and it works for Quebec, but it doesn't work for Gatineau. It doesn't make sense," Lemay said.

In 2005, Wal-Mart closed a store in Jonquière Quebec, just as its employees were about to receive a collective agreement. Lemay said perhaps the company's policies aren't a good fit in Quebec.

"That's the law in Quebec, and if you're not happy, well don't come to Quebec."

Lemay says he's not too concerned about losing jobs that pay less than $9 an hour.

He said Wal-Mart employees could easily find jobs like that elsewhere.