Representation matters.

Unifor celebrates Asian Heritage Month in May by joining with our members to celebrate accomplishments and honour people’s complex and diverse experiences from all across Asia including, eastern, northern, southeast, central and western Asia – from language and culture to stories of immigration.

Asian Heritage Month has been celebrated since the 1990s, but it wasn’t until 2001, that the Canadian Senate adopted a motion proposed by Senator Vivienne Poy to officially designate May as Asian Heritage Month. The following year, the Canadian government officially declared May as Asian Heritage Month.

2023 is significant as it marks the 100th anniversary of the revocation of the head tax, a large fee charged to discourage Chinese people from entering Canada. Shamefully, it was replaced with the Chinese Immigration Act – also known as the “Chinese Exclusion Act” – which virtually halted all immigration from China.

It took until 1947 for the government to repeal the Act, but Chinese immigrants were still treated inequitably. In 2006, the Canadian government formally acknowledged, and apologized for this discriminatory treatment.

Discrimination and racism are not things of the past. During the pandemic, there was a 300% increase in police-reported hate crimes, according to StatsCan.

Most recently, some members of the Chinese-Canadian community have expressed concern about racist backlash relating to geopolitical incidents involving China.

With anti-Asian sentiment and racially motivated crimes against people of Asian descent still prevalent, we must also see Asian Heritage Month as a time to act, to come together to combat all forms of anti-Asian racism and discrimination.

Our union is committed to anti-racism and has expressed clear calls of action to demand government support of Asian community organizations and for measures to help end racism and discrimination.

We believe it is the role of our union to create safer workplaces and dedicated spaces to celebrate the invaluable contributions and accomplishments of Asian people and our diverse membership, by bargaining for workplace protections. This includes initiatives such as bargaining float days that could be used for culturally significant days.

We encourage all locals, unions and Unifor activists to not only encourage workplaces to create opportunities for our Asian, and Black, Indigenous and Workers of Colour members in leadership roles, but to heed the same call.

By being in leadership roles, Asian voices can be properly heard and represented, with the ability to make real change.

We call on our members to be allies. Examine your thoughts and closely held views of Asian people for unconscious biases. Recognize and understand the challenges and barriers faced by Asian and South Asian members of our communities and of our union. Do not stand by silently. Speak against xenophobia, challenge stereotypes and support those experiencing racism and discrimination.

Let’s embrace our workers’ successes. We encourage members of the diverse Asian communities to spread their messages of calls to action and positive achievements on social media and for all members to post our new shareable, using the hashtag, #Unifor4RacialJustice.

For more information on Asian Heritage Month, visit this page.

Unifor proudly marks  International Workers’ Day, celebrated internationally on May 1, as workers and trade uinons continue to struggle for peace, equality, and economic and social justice.

This past year has been particularly challenging for workers as central bankers and corporate profiteers in Canada and elsewhere have waged an open war on the working-class. Shamefully, they have blamed workers for rising inflation and the high cost of living, asserting that too many people are working and that worker wages are increasing too rapidly.

Globally repressive regimes continue to target trade union leaders and labour activists , highlighting the ongoing dangers workers face in attempting to exercise their basic rights. The recent murder of Alex Dolorosa, a call centre union organizer in the Philippines, and the imprisonment of trade union leaders like Reza Shahabi, Hassan Saeedi, and Nasrin Javadi in Iran, among others, demonstrate the need for greater protection of workers’ rights.

Despite these challenges, workers are refusing to stand idle in the face of injustice.

From all corners of the earth, we see workers organizing, mobilizing and resisting the economic and political forces that seek to enrich the lives of a few at the expense of the many.

This resurgence in labour activity is evident across the globe, with Germany recently experiencing one of its largest strikes in decades as transport workers demanded fair wages. Similarly, over a million workers and trade unionists in France took to the streets to protest the government’s pension reforms and raising of the country’s retirement age. In the U.S., Michigan recently became the first state to repeal regressive “right-to-work” legislation thanks to the advocacy of trade unions. Meanwhile, Canada is witnessing one of its largest labour strikes in decades, with 155,000 public servants represented by the PSAC fighting for a fair collective agreement.

As labour union activists, we must never be complacent when it comes to safeguarding our rights.

Right-wing governments look for every opportunity to chip away at the union movement’s hard-fought victories. We saw how quickly the labour movement in Canada united and displayed unprecedented solidarity against Ontario Premier Doug Ford when his government attempted to curtail union rights to bargain by imposing a contract on CUPE education workers. This was followed by the invocation of the Constitution’s notwithstanding clause to override the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms so that the union could not challenge the government’s decision.

These victories inspire workers to continue fighting, even when the odds seem against us. Connecting our local struggles globally only serves to strengthen working-class unity and is the foundation from which we will create a fairer and more equitable world.

I am wishing all Unifor members, locals and activists a Happy May Day!

In solidarity,

Lana Payne
National President

– On behalf of the Inter-provincial EI Working Group

Endorsed by the following organizations:

• Action chômage Kamouraska
• Action-Chômage Côte-Nord
• Alberta Federation of Labour
• Child Care Now
• Community Unemployed Help Centre
• Conseil national des chômeurs et chômeuses (CNC)
• CTF / FCE Canadian Teachers’ Federation
• DIgnidad Migrante Society
• Good Jobs for All Coalition
• HIV & AIDS Legal Clinic Ontario (HALCO)
• Income Security Advocacy Centre
• Justice for Workers
• Le Mouvement autonome et solidaire des sans-emploi (MASSE)
• MacKillop Centre for Social Justice, PEI
• New Brunswick Federation of Labour
• Newfoundland and Labrador Federation of Labour
• Ontario Federation of Labour
• Open Policy Ontario
• Parkdale Community Legal Services
• PEI Coalition for a Poverty Eradication Strategy
• PEI Federation of Labour
• Quinte Immigration Services
• Social Planning Council of Winnipeg
• South Asian Legal Clinic of Ontario (SALCO)
• Toronto & York Region Labour Council
• Unemployed Workers Help Centres, Saskatchewan
• Unifor
• UNITE HERE!
• United Steelworkers (USW) National
• United Steelworkers’ Toronto Area Council
• Vancouver & District Labour Council
• Workers’ Action Centre

TORONTO—Government investment in the clean economy, including electric vehicle production, is necessary to secure good paying jobs and a prosperous future for Canada’s auto sector, says Unifor.

“The scale of the transition to electric vehicle production cannot be overstated, with fierce competition around the world for facilities and the long-term employment that comes with them,” said Unifor National President Lana Payne.

“The federal government’s latest investment shows that Canada is willing to put money and vision into a bold industrial strategy. Securing the VW battery plant is a historic win but it’s vital that workers share in this investment with good paying union jobs.”

The federal government will invest up to $13.2 billion over ten years in Volkswagen’s first North American gigafactory, an EV battery cell plant to be built in St. Thomas, Ontario. The Ontario government has committed $500 million in direct incentives to the company in addition to funds to support local infrastructure.

In addition to capital cost subsidies, Volkswagen and its battery company PowerCo SE will receive production subsidies tied to plant production volumes.

“Unifor has long advocated that government investments must be conditional on continued production, but the company’s obligations shouldn’t end there,” said Payne. “VW is a new addition to the Canadian auto footprint and we fully expect the company to uphold our work standards and to respect their workers’ right to organize.”

The VW battery plant is just one of recent major electric vehicle investments. In 2020 bargaining with the Detroit Three automakers, Unifor brought the message that ‘The Future is Made in Canada’. With investment as a top priority the union secured more than $6 billion in combined commitments from Ford, GM and Stellantis.

In March 2022, Stellantis and LG announced a joint venture to build a lithium-ion battery plant in Windsor, Ontario.

In December 2022, the first BrightDrop all-electric delivery van rolled off the retooled GM CAMI assembly line in Ingersoll, Ontario.

In February of this year, it was announced that Unifor members at the General Motors (GM) St. Catharines Propulsion Plant will be the first Detroit Three facility in Canada to produce electric vehicle propulsion systems.

Last week, Ford Motor Company announced site transformation plans for Oakville that include both vehicle and battery assembly and the renaming of the facility to the Oakville Electric Vehicle Complex.

Unifor will enter negotiations with Detroit Three automakers later this year.

Unifor previously unveiled its set of 29 recommendations for governments and automakers in its auto policy document, Navigating the Road Ahead: Rebuilding Canada’s powerhouse auto sector.