June 24 (Bloomberg) -- The Liquor Control Board of Ontario avoided a strike early this morning as the Ontario Public Service Employees Union extended a deadline indefinitely for a walkout that had been set for 12:01 a.m. today.

The union, which represents more than 7,000 full- and part- time workers at the Canadian province’s liquor monopoly, said on its Web site that the strike deadline has been “extended until either a deal is reached or one or both parties walk away from the table.”

The union and the board have been negotiating for more than three months to replace a contract that expired March 31.

A strike that would close more than 600 stores throughout the province would have been the second this week for Toronto residents, after city workers walked off the job June 22 to protest against proposed benefit cuts. The strike halted most garbage pickup in Canada’s biggest city, and closed some pool and day-care centers.

The threat of a liquor-store strike prompted shoppers to flock to the outlets yesterday to stock up on imported wine, whisky and other spirits.

“We’re a little more concerned about the liquor board strike than the garbage strike,” said Linda Donville, a 62- year-old professor at Toronto’s Centennial College, who bought nine bottles of wine.

The main issue at the liquor board is the use of part-time workers, which according to company spokesman Chris Layton make up 57 percent of the staff.

Disposable Jobs

“We’ve gone from an exclusively permanent workforce to now being in a stage where the majority of the workers at the LCBO have casual jobs,” union spokesman Randy Robinson said in an interview. “They have no benefits, no vacation; they’re basically a kind of disposable job and you just can’t live that way.”

The company would institute a contingency plan in the event of a strike, tapping its 800 managers to keep some stores open.

“We’ll endeavor to provide some service -- we owe that to the public -- but obviously it won’t be business as usual,” Layton said yesterday, contemplating a strike.

The liquor board is Ontario’s sole provider of spirits and imported wine, providing a C$1.35 billion ($1.17 billion) dividend to the provincial government in its last fiscal year, according to figures on its Web site.

“It seems pretty offensive to me that they could do that to us, so the only option was to go ahead and stock up a bit and weather the storm,” said Matt Wolfe, a reinsurance broker with Beach & Associates Ltd. Wolfe left a crowded store in Toronto’s financial district on King Street with two bottles of Talisker single-malt Scotch whisky, a couple bottles of white wine and some champagne.

Ontario residents can buy beer at brewery-owned stores, and Ontario wines at independent outlets such as Wine Rack.

To contact the reporter on this story: Doug Alexander in Toronto at dalexander3@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: June 24, 2009 00:26 EDT