The Ontario Public Service Employees Union says a strike is looming over the province’s liquor retailer if a new contract deal isn’t reached with LCBO management by April 24th.

OPSEU represents more than 7,500 LCBO workers. Hundreds of them rallied outside LCBO headquarters on Lake Shore Blvd. in Toronto on Friday, protesting what they say is “creeping privatization” of the publicly-owned booze retailer.

For half an hour union members waved flags and chanted slogans like “We own it, don’t sell it!”

OPSEU president Smokey Thomas said his member’s biggest concerns are the LCBO’s reliance on casual contracts over full time employees, and ongoing steps towards privatization.

“It’s 80 per cent female workers. It’s 80 per cent casual, and they want to create even more casual positions,” Thomas said.

“They were supposed to create more full time jobs and they’re not replacing full timers when they retire,” he said.

The union is currently in collective bargaining with the LCBO.

Company spokeswoman Christine Bujold said the LCBO respects the rights of its employees to protest, but could not comment beyond that because of the ongoing contract negotiations.

“The LCBO is committed to reaching a negotiated collective agreement with OPSEU and we remain optimistic that we will be able to do this,” Bujold said.

The control board’s sales have been very strong in the past year. In June 2016, it posted a record $5.57 billion in sales for 2014-15.

Thomas said the company has been mean-spirited in bargaining since the union won a human rights tribunal arbitration in February that created a single wage grid for both full-time and casual retail workers.

“The response from the company is to try to gut out the contract and make the workers pay for it themselves,” Thomas said.

“They’re starting to mess around with schedules, they’re cutting hours. We’re now seeing situations where there’s one person working in a store where there was always two. That’s a health and safety issue,” he said, adding that working alone at night in a store full of alcohol is particularly dangerous, especially for the predominantly female casual retail workers.

Bujold said as a result of the arbitration settlement, which sets a common wage grid for both full time and casual retail workers, the control board is committed to hiring 200 additional full time employees.

Thomas said if a deal isn’t reached by April 24, the union will hold a strike vote that could see members leave the check-out counter for the picket line by the end of the month.

The last time that LCBO workers threatened to walk off the job in 2013, the provincial retailer encouraged customers to stock up and booze flew off the shelves ahead of the May long weekend.

On Friday Thomas said that’s another mean-spirited tactic meant to capitalize on the struggles of LCBO employees.

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“Every round of bargaining we’ve had to get the strike vote, takes them right to the 11th hour and then you get a deal,” Thomas said.

“Why wouldn’t you just sit and do the bloody deal? But they like that huge spike in sales that lasts a couple of days. They actually brag about how much they take in.”