Eight employees at a tire-and-lube garage at the Maloney Boulevard Wal-Mart, who are now members of Local 486 of the United Food and Commercial Workers Canada union, will see their paycheques grow by an average of 35 to 40 per cent, from the current $8.50 an hour, and will also get more vacation benefits, local president Guy Chenier told media outlets.
The collective agreement is effective immediately.
The historic agreement is one of the first victories for Wal-Mart workers, and follows the 2005 closure of a Jonquiere, Que. store just before an arbitrator was to have imposed a collective agreement on the retailer.
A Windsor, Ont. Wal-Mart store had a collective agreement for a short time during the 1990s, but the outlet is no longer unionized.
The auto service shop in Gatineau is next to a non-unionized Wal-Mart store with more than 200 employees.
