Share
Unifor's Ontario Regional Council held its first-ever meeting in early December, spending a busy couple of days adopting a set of bylaws, electing its first executive and choosing the members of seven different committees.
More than 700 delegates also heard from a Conservative Senator about the importance of unions and free collective bargaining, got details of next fall's Good jobs Summit and heard a plea for an end to youth gun violence.
“We are going to change things. We are going to build the kind of Canada that our members want,” National President Jerry Dias told the council. “Unifor wasn’t born to maintain the status quo.”
Ontario Regional Director Katha Fortier said Unifor will be active in the next provincial election as the voice of working people.
“Corporations have a political voice, a pretty loud one,” Fortier said.
Unifor local 444 President Dino Chiodo was elected chair of the council, held December 6-8 in Toronto, while Candace Lavalley, president of Local 7-O, was elected vice chair, and Tullio DiPonti, secretary-treasurer of Local 2458, was elected secretary-treasurer. The rest of the executive and committee members were also elected.
With labour rights under attack from conservative politicians, Unifor research director Bill Murnighan explained where our current rights came from.
“None of this just happened. When our very existence is being challenged, it’s vital that we know where our rights came from.”
Conservative Senator Hugh Segal, who has stood up to his own party's attempts to attack unions, said free unions and collective bargaining are essential to a prosperous Canada and a stable middle class.
"My Canada is one where trade unions and free collective bargaining make Canada a better place to live," Segal said.
Unifor economist Jim Stanford said Unifor's Good Jobs Summit will be held next October 4-5, following months of regional events.
“Canada needs the Good Jobs Summit,” Stanford said. “There aren’t enough jobs, and the jobs we do have are getting worse."
Besides labour rights issue, delegates also discussed vital societal issues.
Barb MacQuarrie, community director of the Centre for Research and Education on Violence Against Women and Children at Western University, discussed her research into domestic violence coming into the workplace, and received support for a survey on the issue.
"This nationwide survey is essential,” she said.
Delegates also heard a moving address from Symone Walters, whose 15-year-old son Tahj Loor-Walters was shot and killed last summer. She urged immediate action to stop the cycle of youth gun violence.
“If we don’t start today, it will never end," she said.
Tahj’s grandfather Victor Loor is a member of Unifor Local 112 in Toronto. Ontario Council delegates voted to donate $5,000 in Tahj's name to a fund to end youth violence.
