Empire Company Limited has ratified a new five-year labour agreement with its Safeway employees in Alberta.
The new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) includes a one-time retroactive lump sum payment to Safeway employees in the province for hours worked over the past three years of approximately $15.6 million pre-tax.
“We’ve committed to grow our market share through Project Horizon and strengthening our Safeway banner in Western Canada is important to our success,” said Michael Medline, president and CEO, Empire Company Limited. “Our Safeway teammates are incredibly committed to their customers and the Safeway brand and this collective agreement provides us with the stability we need to invest in our Safeway network in Alberta. We have now finalized fair and competitive labour agreements for all markets in the West, enabling us to push forward with our plans to invest in Safeway and expand FreshCo.”
Empire has also committed to investing $200 million in capital toward the Safeway store network over five years and will be part of the expected total company average annual capital spend of $700 million over the next three years, as announced with Empire’s Project Horizon.
