While Safeway has been talking of introducing the new technology in some stores in BC for over a year now, the timing of the company's decision to launch the new technology is being viewed with real suspicion by union members from Safeway.

"With the contract set to expire in less than a month, and us being in the middle of negotiations," says Frank Pozzobon, Secretary-Treasurer of UFCW 1518, "many union members are viewing this as an attempt by Safeway to scare them, to undermine their job security and lower their expectations for what can be achieved in negotiations for a new contract."

"Needless to say," says Pozzobon, "the Safeway members have seen this sort of thing from Safeway before at contract time, and it's going to just make them that much more determined to get a better contract with even better job security language."

Scare tactics like this are nothing new to Safeway members. During the run-up to negotiations for the 2003 contract, Safeway announced they were closing their store in Duncan, only to reverse their position a few weeks later and eventually open a brand new store.

"One of the oldest and nastiest tricks in the book," says Pozzobon, "is to threaten employees job security, and one of the ways they do that is by introducing new technology. "It's all about the employers starting to use fear tactics to try and lower union members' expectations of the improvements they deserve in a new contract."

"These tactics haven't worked in the past, and they won't now either," says Pozzobon.