The Quebec casino strike is over, but workers there are having a tough time getting over the hard feelings and lingering resentment from the three-month-long work stoppage.
Riccardo Scopelleti, president of the Casino de Montreal-CSN security workers’ unit, told CDC Gaming the union workers feel “shortchanged.”
“Loto-Québec’s big concern is getting everybody back to where we were,” he said. “It’s a customer-service-oriented [business]. It’s what we sell on, so we’re working together with them to bring it back where it was, but relations have been fractured. We were at war for the last three months. We’re not going to just go in and move on like nothing happened. It’s a hard pill to swallow, but we were fighting a big machine.”
The union represents 1,700 employees in the casinos, including security agents, first cooks, slot attendants, and housekeeping attendants, as well as online gaming in non-gaming functions. They went on strike June 23. Loto-Québec announced Sept. 26 the two sides had reached an agreement.
The union obtained a total wage increase of 21 per cent over six years (3.48 per cent per year) and a one-time payment of $CAD1,250 ($USD914).
The union was originally demanding wage increases equivalent to the inflation rate plus $1 per hour and were citing six-figure annual bonuses to Loto-Québec executives.
Loto-Québec operates Casino de Montreal, Hotel-Casino du Lac-Leamy, Casino de Mont-Tremblant, Hotel-Casino de Charlevoix, and two gaming halls, Salon de jeux de Québec and Salon de jeux de Trois- Rivières.
Scopelleti said an outside firm is helping to bring the workers back “in the right way, in the right mindset, but it’s going to take some time.”
Scopelleti said the process for the workers in getting back to work got emotional last week with the executive members from both sides around the table. There will be more opportunities to get rid of “the dirty laundry” over the next few weeks. Workers have been gradually returning to work at all the casinos and online, with normal operations restarting as of Oct. 2.
“We have six years to work together,” he said. “That’s the bottom line.”
