LCBO workers are in a weak position — but it’s a stronger one than they’ll ever hold again | TVO Today

Those of us who’ve been of legal drinking age for (mumblemumble) years have had to deal with possible LCBO strikes in the past. The near-miss in 2009 was particularly memorable for me, as I was, at that point, in what I think of as “peak house-party years,” so the threat of a summer disruption to the alcohol supply was the kind of thing that caused actual consternation.

Fast-forward 15 years, and an actual LCBO strike means having to do a brief bit of mental calculation about where I’ll shop instead. The alcohol market in Ontario has changed dramatically in the intervening years — and not just in the most obvious ways.

The decision nearly a decade ago to allow the sale of wine and beer in grocery stores certainly added more options for consumers. According to the LCBO’s official communications, its warehouses will continue to operate, so that channel for alcohol should remain open — though, of course, disruptions ought to be expected. If nothing else, OPSEU members know where the warehouses are, meaning they can put their pickets in places that disrupt the easy movement of trucks.

While that was the highest-profile change in alcohol sales — and the sale of alcohol in private stores is central to the current labour dispute — it misses some of the more subtle, but at least as important, changes in the alcohol market that have contributed to weakening the LCBO’s hold on the alcohol trade. As the province has worked to encourage the growth of craft brewers and distillers and smaller winemakers, it’s progressively adopted more policies that allow alcohol makers to sell into the market in ways that don’t go through the LCBO at all.

Most obviously, small brewers are allowed to sell directly out of their premises, something that has become more important as they spring up all over Toronto and in cities around the province. (My nearest source of beer isn’t a grocery store, beer store, or LCBO, but a craft brewer that had the misfortune to open at the beginning of COVID but has nevertheless thrived.) Beer, wine, and cider can be sold off-site at farmer’s markets, and the province has relaxed the rules around delivering alcohol from licensed bars and restaurants or simply direct to consumers — albeit not as aggressively as alcohol vendors would like.

The LCBO’s role in liquor retail, in short, is decidedly smaller than it was even a decade ago — and that’s before the Ford government’s announced plan to speed up the expansion of sales in corner stores. Unlike Ford’s more recent decision, most of these measures have largely been uncontroversial: Who, after all, was going to rail against a small brewer being able to sell some cans under a tent at a farmer’s market? Who thought bars and restaurants needed fewer supports during COVID?

This is one of those cases in which the cumulative effects of relatively small changes — tweaks you would barely have noticed unless you worked in the industry (or were paid to pay attention to it) — have quietly but substantially reshaped the sector. And while some of these changes long predate Ford’s time in government, they are also inescapably tied up in the strike that began this morning at midnight. OPSEU workers can see which way the wind is blowing: it’s pushing the province’s liquor agency to a much-reduced role.

To put it bluntly, LCBO workers are in a weaker position today than they’ve ever been — yet this may be the strongest one they’ll ever hold again, particularly if they don’t carve out some major exceptions to the Ford government’s plans for corner-store alcohol. It’s no accident that the union is trying to keep premade ready-to-drink cocktails (think White Claw and its cousins) exclusive to the LCBO.

The problem for the union is at least twofold. As I’ve said before, once Ford has taken the political heat for finally implementing corner-store beer and wine, no future government is going to substantially reverse the move, regardless of election outcome. Of more immediate consequence: the government could simply go around the union altogether and relax at least some of the regulatory rules that give the LCBO its power, making it easier (for example) for vendors to deliver directly to consumers. The current rules are spelled out in regulation and could be changed by ministerial fiat — something that wouldn’t require MPPs to return to Queen’s Park.

Government sources who spoke with TVO Today on background say this isn’t currently being considered as a means of short-circuiting the strike; labour disputes are unpredictable, however, and the longer one goes on, the less control anyone has over where it ends. Perhaps the Ford government will decide to back down on the ready-to-drink cocktail issue, though I’m skeptical. And that leaves OPSEU in the unenviable position of trying to win what it can for its members, while knowing this will likely be the best chance it’ll ever get again.