I worked at a Loblaws chain for 5 years. I started at the bottom, making minimum wage, and 5 years later... still at the bottom making minimum wage. Increases in minimum wage legislation negated the effects of my much earned (and pathetically low) pay-raises. We paid big dollars for the probably the worst union to ever grace (ha) the Canadian workforce. I was a workhorse, I busted my hump for that company and received absolutely no kudos, while I worked with employees who would, literally (and I can not stress LITERALLY enough), do nothing but stand around and chat. No matter how much I brought this to the attention of management, no steps were taken to rectify this problem. It is unbelievable. This is the tip of the iceberg with this company. Managers could not manage. They did not know how to direct staff, reprimand effectively (or at all, in most cases), order inventory, affect change, or competently carry out any essential management function. Everyone in the store looked out for their own backs, there no was no atmosphere of solidarity whatsoever. Perhaps management had no will to manage well because they were so horrible underpaid... although, I tend to think that raising management salaries would not do anything because of the core incompetency of most managers. There is practically no upward mobility. This is all in all a terrible place to work. The total effect of this company, as I observed, was to breed resentment among employees. Try Wal-Mart.