Sunday, June 02, 2013
IKEA Burlington: Ikea Stockholm Side table (Was $99) $49 and Vate Shade, Assorted Colours (Was $7) $3
IKEA Calgary: Lekman Box 37x37x33 Transparent (Was $15) $4.99 and Fredrik Desk (Was $99) $49IKEA Coquitlam: Barnslig Randig Pair of curtains (Was $29.99) $14.9, Pax Malm Pair of sliding doors
(Was $320) $160
KEA Edmonton: Not listed
IKEA Etobicoke: Ikea Stockholm Side table (Was $99) $49
IKEA Montreal: Not listed
IKEA North York: Micke Desk (Was $99) $69 and Orgel Vreten Floor lamp (Was $39.99) $17.99
IKEA Ottawa: Engan wardrobe (Was $199) $99
IKEA Richmond: Not listed
IKEA Vaughan: Skubb Shoe box (Was $12.99) $5.99
IKEA Winnipeg: Janette Curtains, 1 pair (Was $39.99) $24.99 and Pax Tonnes Sliding Doors (Was $440) $140
I thought I’d put out a comment that the employees at IKEA in Richmond, BC are currently locked out during a labour dispute for the past 3 weeks, although the store is still running on limited hours.
ReplyDeleteHowever, the stakes have been increased recently. Management is using bullying and intimidation tactics by threatening to reduce the terms of their offer on the table if the union doesn’t sign a contract by a certain time. You can read about what they are threatening to do http://www.cknw.com/news/vancouver/story.aspx/story.aspx?ID=1972793
This amounts to bullying tactics and I think people should know what IKEA is doing to their employees.
Unions get a bad rap in the media beause most of the time, they’re fighting for wage increases, benefit increases, etc. However, the IKEA Richmond union is not fighting against IKEA because they simply want more money – They are fighting to retain what they already have and to keep what the company is threatening to take away!
One of the biggest issues is that IKEA wants to re-introduce a tiered-wage system where newer workers are paid a lower starting salary than the more senior workers for doing the exact same job – basically ignoring the principle of equal pay for equal work. This is also a system where a new employee will take longer to make as much money as an older worker (and may never reach that goal). This two-tiered system is one that was widely implemented after the last recession, particularly in the auto-manufacturing industry in the USA.
Another big issue is the company wants to reduce benefits and remove hour guarantees. This will affect part-time workers the most. It is true that IKEA pays benefits for part-time workers, but only if they work above a certain number of hours a week (80% of benefits if they work more than 15 hours a week, and 100% if they work more than 24 hours I believe). The part-time benefits certainly are generous but there is a catch – since management controls the number of hours that their employees work, they are able to control how many of their employees get benefits. And a staggering 280 out of 350 workers are considered part-time workers – from what I have heard from my dad, many part-timers are getting way less than 15 hours a week (4-8 hours a week is not uncommon). This makes them ineligible for any benefits at all, and the company is trying to reduce benefits even further by removing the hour guarantees.
So by hiring more part-time workers, paying them less money overall, and having them work less hours than what would make them eligible for benefits, the company is using a back-door way to save on costs.
In full disclosure, my father is one of the employees who is locked out
Please make an informed choice when deciding to shop at IKEA.
Thank you