While I understand there's no substitute for an actual lawyer and my post will be a bit scarce in detail, that's because, in my belief, certain details of the person in question's employment rights have been intentionally or unintentionally obfuscated from him. This posting is regarding my common law partner, whom we will call Harry.

Harry has been employed at a employee unionized grocery store for 5 years. Earlier this year, his department manager announced his intent to retire, and trained my partner, who was already second-in-command, on the remaining managerial duties that Harry had yet to learn. 3 weeks before the official retirement of his department manager, it was announced that someone high up in the chain of command (above regional) had simply given the vacancy to someone else outside of the region. This is in direct violation of union guidelines, which state that the vacancy must be considered within the department staff first and foremost. If no suitable applicant is found, it extends to the entire store, and then the region. I suspect to prevent the cronyism that blatantly occurred.

My partner has tried to contact his union representative 4 times about this matter, but each time his voicemails are not returned. At all. He's been told there's no other union representative he can speak to and he has to keep trying for this guy who, over the years, has never once returned my partners' calls. My partner has also spoken to the in-store union rep, and submitted a letter to outline the violation. That was 2 weeks ago with no response. Last week, he had a chance to talk to the regional manager about the situation and the regional manager gave some vague reasons as to why it was not his place to authorize any sort of compensation, other employment placement of comparable standing (since that is mandated to happen from within the department or store), or advocacy.

People... My partner ran the entire department while his since-retired department manager took up his weeks and weeks of vacation time. Everything from scheduling, ordering, managerial meetings, regional stock meetings, employee discipline, as well as all the typical duties working in a grocery department. He was not allowed to take a sick day, he did many hours of overtime. For 5 months he ran the department 3 out of every 4 weeks. After his new manager 'took over', it became clear he was unable to do any managerial duties expected of him, and now my partner is training him, on everything. Every week he had had 5-10 hours of overtime to train his new boss on absolutely everything.

Harry's current wage is sitting at 12.10, which is $1.85 above minimum wage. He has only ever received a wage increase because of the union-mandated increases everyone received after each 500 hours worked. He's been told a raise without a promotion is impossible. In my view, they are sincerely taking advantage of Harry, and we have both had enough. To me it seems there must be some serious violation of their union rules here, but it has been impossible to get the union to cooperate.

Now, the question I have is... What can my partner do in order to demand adequate compensation? Where we live my partner is earning sub-poverty wages. It simply does not seem fair to me that his boss, the person he is training in essential duties, earns easily 8 times if not more than my partner does. (How do we know? We know the new manager, in part, wanted the job in our city because he was building a house here, and we crunched some numbers).

Can my partner refuse to perform managerial training duties and only do what was included on his employee agreement?

How can he gain access to his union rights when his union is being uncooperative?

Would it be a smart move to hand in his notice now, when he is essential to the department, with literally no one else to perform the essential duties he performs? Can that be an effective tactic in negotiating a higher wage?

Any and all advice, or personal experience, would be deeply appreciated. Any relevant Canadian law would be super-duper appreciated. We are ready to take our claws out, since there is apparently no good to be had in being diplomatic.