The third quarter numbers show soaring profits while wages for frontline workers were cut in June.
Just a couple of weeks after Loblaw Companies Ltd. tried, ludicrously, to spin quarterly profits of $162 million and increased sales are somehow a negative so as to justify cancelling the $2 an hour wage premium that was being paid to workers, the numbers for the Metro grocery chain are in.
And the profits are rolling in.
According to a press release today (August 12) the third quarter of 2020 saw:
Sales of $5,835.2 million, up 11.6%
Food same-store sales up 15.6%
Pharmacy same-store sales up 1.0%
Net earnings of $263.5 million, up 18.5% and adjusted net earnings of $272.3 million, up 18.2%
Fully diluted net earnings per share of $1.04, up 20.9% and adjusted fully diluted net earnings per share of $1.08, up 20.0%
Metro, just like Loblaw and Empire Co. Ltd., cancelled its $2 an hour wage premium on June 13. Though the chains denied collusion, this seemed difficult to believe and even led to executives having to appear before a House of Commons committee, to little effect.
Seeing the Metro numbers the grotesque cancellation of a $2 an hour wage hike that was richly deserved and that should have been made permanent for some of the lowest paid workers in the country is shown to have been driven very clearly by corporate greed. With such soaring profits it is simply impossible to morally justify cutting the wages of workers whose labour continues to generate big profits under the very trying and dangerous working conditions of an ongoing pandemic.
Sobeys did cut their wage premium as well. In the end all of the "big three" announced the cut on the exact same day (June 13) but then claimed it was not coordinated! How these folks sleep at night is beyond me.
A neighbour who went to work for the closest Métro here (she could walk there, and cycle of course) quit after that. It is disgusting and insulting. Usually working conditions at this Métro branch (it is long-standing, and very small, kept open as it is just across the street from the Jean-Talon métro station, which serves two lines; thus many commuters shop there on their way home as well as neighbourhood people, as we are in a highly walkable and cyclable neighbourhood). But in addition to the insulting pay cut, the workers were under a great deal of stress, among themselves and with the clients.
Has Sobeys cut their wages yet?
There is no excuse. "Specials" (promotions) all disappeared from…