Members of Unifor Local 414 have rejected a tentative agreement with Metro Grocery stores in the Greater Toronto Area and are instead hitting the picket line.

About 3,700 workers are now off the job.

27 Metro stores will be closed for the duration of the strike, but pharmacies will remain open.

Unifor National President Lana Payne and Unifor Local 414 President, Gord Currie spoke at a grocery store picket line outside a Metro in Danforth Village this morning.

Both Payne and Currie pointed to wages that are too low to be able to survive, especially in a city as expensive as Toronto. Workers say they can’t even afford to shop in the store they work at.

NDP leader Jagmeet Singh has already voiced his full support for workers, agreeing with Payne and Currie that the gap between senior executives’ pay and that of workers has grown even more unfair over the past decade.

Unifor says stores affected by the strike will be closed and include those in Toronto and its suburbs, Brantford, Orangeville, Milton, Oakville, Brampton and Mississauga.