Unifor teamed up with the Ontario Health Coalition and many other unions and advocacy groups to send a loud message to Doug Ford: the time to fix long-term care is now!

“Hundreds of Unifor members, locals and leaders participated in the Day of Action, showing just how committed this union is to fixing long-term care,” said Jerry Dias, National President. “It took a pandemic for government to see the enormous flaws in the current system our union has been fighting to fix for many years, including low pay leading to chronic under-staffing, and a lack of minimum standard hours for resident care which, if implemented, would lead to a manageable patient to staff ratio.”

The online action had individuals contribute selfies while holding a poster of demands to Premier Ford. More than a thousand submissions were made on Facebook and Twitter under the hashtag #FixLTCFord.

“It’s encouraging to see the support from across Ontario for better working conditions and better care standards for seniors and residents,” said Katha Fortier, Assistant to the National President. “Premier Ford has publicly committed to fix long-term care and we intend to hold him to that promise.”

Submissions from supporters can be seen on the Ontario Health Coalition Facebook page.

Will you support better care, safer work and fair pay in long-term care? Sign the Unifor petition here to demand change: unifor.org/fairpay.

April 30, 2020

REGINA—Pressure is growing for Premier Scott Moe to end the Co-op Refinery lockout with binding arbitration after the Regina City Council endorsed the idea today by a near unanimous vote of 9-1.

“City councillors out-flanked the mayor to show real leadership with this extraordinary endorsement of binding arbitration,” said Jerry Dias, Unifor National President. “After Co-op snubbed the province’s mediators, a legislated solution is the best path to ending the lockout.”

Moved by councillor Andrew Stevens, the motion calls on the provincial government to seek binding arbitration to end the 147-day lockout at the Co-op Refinery. The refinery attempted to impose a final offer on Unifor Local 594 but workers voted 89 per cent against the contract. The union has already ratified the compromise proposed by two independent mediators in March 2020.

“Premier Moe’s appointment of mediators was a welcome step, but now we need the premier to follow through and impose the compromises proposed by the mediators,” said Kevin Bittman, president of Unifor Local 594.

Unifor is Canada’s largest union in the private sector, representing 315,000 workers in every major area of the economy. The union advocates for all working people and their rights, fights for equality and social justice in Canada and abroad, and strives to create progressive change for a better future.

 

In temporarily replacing regular Employment Insurance benefits, the new Canada Emergency Response Benefit has provided needed support to millions, in a short amount of time.

However, the CERB has a glaring loophole that is short-changing workers from receiving additional income assistance from their employers.

Hundreds of thousands of workers in Canada have access to Supplemental Unemployment Benefit (SUB) payments when they are on layoff. These special, employer-paid benefit “top-ups” can provide hundreds of dollars, per week, to offset a worker’s loss of income.

Unlike regular EI, the CERB rules deny workers these SUB payments that many have won at the bargaining table.

There is a simple fix to this problem that Unifor already proposed in a letter to Minister Qualtrough. In order to ensure this change is made before members are denied the CERB, all affected workers must add their voices.

 

Sign The Petition…add your voice!!

Unifor members at General Motors in Oshawa are proud to be recalled from layoff to begin manufacturing urgently needed masks for health care professionals and for Canadians.

On Friday April 24, 2020, Navdeep Bains, the federal Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry announced that General Motors had signed a letter of intent to retool part of the Oshawa Assembly plant to make fabric masks for Health Canada.

“Unifor members in Oshawa are highly skilled and ready to step up and make whatever our country needs to get through this pandemic,” said Jerry Dias, Unifor National President. “The fact that Unifor members will help GM produce as many as a million fabric masks per month is an example of what we can do when we work together.”

General Motors says work will involve two shifts of 25 each for a total of 50 workers and is expected to last one year.

“Our plant in Oshawa is a “clean” facility and makes perfect sense for it to be licensed as a medical manufacturer. We welcome more opportunities to use even more parts of the facility to help battle this pandemic,” said Colin James, President of Unifor Local 222.

The work is expected to begin in mid-May once a machine designed by General Motors is installed in Oshawa. Production of fabric masks for health care workers is already underway at GM’s facility in Warren, Michigan.

“I applaud all of the companies who have retooled to assist in these efforts to strengthen our domestic supply chain challenge. Together we are rising to the challenge,” said Bains during Friday’s news conference in Oshawa.

“Many people at GM, the federal government and our union worked very hard to obtain the speedy approvals needed to get this project rolling,” said Dias.

General Motors says it will be selling the masks to the federal government at cost.

Since COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic, Canada and the rest of the world has been responding to what will surely be remembered as the biggest health, social and economic crisis of our time. Providing a robust social system that includes universal access to health care is critically essential for Canada to succeed in a global economy.

However, Canada remains the only developed country with a universal health care system that has no universal prescription drug coverage.

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, more than 8 million Canadians did not have prescription drug coverage and an estimated 3 million Canadians did not take medicines prescribed by their doctors because they couldn’t afford them. In a matter of weeks, millions of Canadians have been laid off with few of them having any health care benefits to carry them through this crisis.

The time to act is now – together we need to demand universal pharmacare for everyone, regardless of income, age, or where the person works or lives.

 

Sign the petition here….