April 28 is the Day of Mourning, a day to remember workers who have died or become injured because of their work. It is also a time to renew our commitment to building safe workplaces and fighting for the safety of all workers.

Close to 1,000 workers in Canada die each year in workplace incidents.

This is a staggering statistic, but those who are lost must be more than one number among many.

They are our lost colleagues, friends, and loved ones. Families are forever changed and forever carrying grief.

To date in 2024, Unifor mourns the loss of MWF Local 1 member Jamie Knight who was struck by a payloader clearing snow at the Halifax Shipyard on February 23, and a transport driver member of Local 4209 at Kindersley Transport who was killed in a head-on collision with another transport truck on March 6.

Unifor honours their memory by recommitting to our work to improve health and safety across all workplaces. This means pushing authorities, regulators, and employers to make worker safety a top-line priority for everyone, from the C-suite to the shop floor and beyond.

Unifor activists are transforming workplaces, pushing for positive changes to priorities, programs, and protections every day. The work of health and safety activists is challenging and often encounters resistance from employers who put profits ahead of safety. Health and safety work is essential work that must never be neglected or relegated to the sidelines. It is at the heart of what we do as a union.

On March 31, 2024, Unifor marked the 20th anniversary of the enactment of the Westray Law which amended the Criminal Code of Canada. Unions campaigned for this law for a decade following a preventable explosion that killed 26 miners at the Westray Mine in Nova Scotia. These amendments made it possible for corporations and executives to be held criminally responsible for actions or negligence that led to a worker being injured or killed.

And yet, this legal tool is not used to its full power and potential, robbing many families of justice and allowing corporations to continue cutting corners with minimal repercussions.

Since its enactment in 2004, there have been only 10 successful convictions of a corporation or individual, despite tens of thousands of worker deaths.

This must change. Police authorities, Crown prosecutors and safety regulators must effectively use the Westray Law or corporations will continue to escape serious responsibility for their neglect.

So today, let us remember our rights, enforce our rights, and continue to support each other as trade unionists to build stronger safety cultures and ultimately a world where every worker goes home safe and healthy at the end of the work day.

Unifor Ontario Regional Director Samia Hashi and President of Unifor Local 975 Doug Carter testified on April 8 to the Standing Committee on the Interior about contracting out and methane leaks in Ontario’s gas sector that result in increased costs to consumers.

“The Ontario government has a unique chance to contain household gas prices increases, fight climate change, and protect good jobs at the same time. It’s a win-win for workers and Ontario families,” said Hashi.

In their testimony to the committee, Hashi and Carter argued that the Ontario Energy Board must do a more rigorous job monitoring gas companies’ investments in infrastructure. Aging gas infrastructure leads to methane leaks, which both contributes to climate change and drives up costs to consumers.

“When gas leaks are not fixed, Ontario families pay three times: They pay through the delayed investment in upgrading and maintaining our gas infrastructure; they pay for it through climate change; they pay through the increased risks of major safety incidents,” Hashi said.

Unifor also noted that regulated gas utility companies have been contracting out maintenance and leak mitigation, which only serves to erode the core competencies and skills sets of the permanent workforce. The result is a “virtual utility” where the regulated entity is simply passing on the work to a contractor.

Carter said that contracting out is ultimately unsafe, hurts the quality of service, and significantly increases the long-term costs of maintaining Ontario’s gas infrastructure.

“The way that contracting is happening in the gas industry is resulting in inferior quality services, resulting in increased costs, sustained high risks of dangerous gas leaks, and health and safety incidents. We must ensure our utilities have the workers and the in-house skills to ensure safe, reliable, and leak-free infrastructure.”

Unifor proposed amendments to the committee studying the legislation that would help the regulator address these issues.

On February 20, 2024 National President Lana Payne wrote to the Minister of Energy and Natural Resources about methane leaks.

OTTAWA –Unifor recognizes the federal government for delivering a budget that pushes social progress and jobs in the face of economic inequities, relentless affordability pressures and stubbornly high interest rates.

“Working people in Canada have been struggling with an affordability crisis, exacerbated by the Bank of Canada’s stubborn refusal to lower interest rates,” said Unifor National President Lana Payne.

“Budgets can’t undo decades of revenue-depleting tax cuts, but they can act as building-blocks for more creative and progressive ways to help Canadians weather the economic challenges they face now and in the future.”

With a focus on “Fairness for Every Generation”, Budget 2024 commits to significantly bolster Canada’s housing stock, including affordable rental housing and social housing and provides new protections to renters. The Budget also commits to establish a long overdue national school food program that, along with childcare, dental care, and the beginnings of a pharmacare program, represent the most ambitious progress on social programs in decades.

Unifor is pleased to hear of the commitment to new funding for VIA Rail to replace its aging fleet of passenger rail vehicles. However, without distinct commitments to keep VIA Rail public and rail cars built in Canada, the country will not reap the full rewards of the investment.

In the auto sector, a new Electric Vehicle (EV) Supply Chain investment tax credit was announced to support growth in the EV supply chain. The budget also invests in space and aerospace with a commitment to enhance technology development for space exploration and purchase necessary vehicles and equipment. Unifor believes these efforts must be coupled with a procurement strategy and industrial strategy that ensures equipment will be designed and built in Canada.

Increasing taxes on wealthy individuals has been a long-standing Unifor recommendation. The union commends the government’s decision to increase the Capital Gains tax paid by the wealthiest individuals and corporations and encourages government to continue exploring additional tax reform measures that ensure the rich pay their fair share.

Unifor also welcomes the government’s commitment to developing legislation that guides requirements for safe long-term care homes through the Safe Long-Term Care Act and to develop a National Caregiving Strategy, which affects nurses, personal support workers and early child care educators among others.

Budget 2024 did miss the mark on several key recommendations identified by Unifor.

“This budget failed to address priorities including recapitalizing the Strategic Innovation Fund, investment in domestically manufactured transit vehicles and rolling stock, targeted supports for workers in Canada’s forestry sector and disclosure by telecommunications companies on outsourcing work,” said Unifor Quebec Director Daniel Cloutier.

The union is also disappointed by the key omission of Employment Insurance reform to improve eligibility and benefits for workers.

“Unifor will continue to fight for strong industrial policy and for the government to deliver on a long-standing promise to modernize and improve the Employment Insurance Program to ensure that it supports workers when they need it the most,” Payne added.

In 2020, Unifor released its Build Back Better road map to pave the way for a fair, inclusive and resilient economic recovery, throughout and beyond the pandemic.

That road map included affordable child care, universal pharmacare, critical infrastructure, anti-scab legislation and industrial development and investment.

“The pandemic exposed workers’ vulnerability to the long-standing weaknesses in our social services and gaps in industrial policies, made worse by the previous Harper government,” said Payne. “It’s encouraging to see this government lay the foundations for progress that will serve workers well for generations to come.”

On April 16, 2024 we mark Equal Pay Day which is a stark reminder of the ongoing fight for gender equality in the workplace in Canada and a call to rethink how we value labour as a society.

Equal Pay Day symbolizes the average additional time it takes for women in our country to earn what men did in the previous year, highlighting the persistent gender wage gap. For many women it may take even longer to achieve equal pay.

Facts reveal the undeniable reality of the gender wage gap and its impact on women’s economic security. In Canada, women earn approximately 68 cents for every dollar earned by men, with even wider gaps for Indigenous and Black women at 58 cents, and women with disabilities at 57 cents. This gap not only affects individual women but also has deep implications for families and communities, where cycles of inequality and poverty persist.

Equal Pay Day is a day rooted in action and advocacy as we strive to dismantle barriers that continue to allow employers to pay women less.

Today is also the Federal Budget day and equal pay is a pillar of feminist fiscal policy that is long overdue to level the playing field.

Whenever the issue of the persistent gender wage gap is mentioned, there are a ton of myths that inevitably surface. This misinformation is being used to slow progress and must be challenged.

One such myth is that the gender wage gap exists because women choose lower paying jobs. No one chooses to have their work undervalued and underpaid. This should go without saying. One of the primary causes of the gender pay gap is that jobs that are traditionally associated with ‘women’s work’ are underpaid. Think of any job in the ‘caring industry’ such as nurses, midwives, and long-term care workers. It isn’t that women choose jobs that are in lower-paid industries, it is that women-dominated industries become less respected and less well-paid occupations because women do the work.

Another misconception is that the pay gap only exists because women are bad at negotiating pay. Let’s be clear, it is not an individual woman’s responsibility to ensure that her human rights are being upheld. It is the responsibility of government and employers to do so, which is why Unifor and other organizations are fighting for pay transparency legislation.

Pay transparency legislation plays a crucial role in addressing wage disparities by promoting accountability and empowering workers to advocate for fair compensation. By requiring employers to disclose salary information, these laws enable employees to identify and challenge discriminatory pay practices.

Unifor calls on every province and territory to implement comprehensive pay transparency legislation.

However, pay transparency alone is not enough to achieve true pay equity. We must also address systemic inequalities rooted in discriminatory practices and biases. Pay equity legislation aims to eliminate gender-based wage disparities by ensuring that women receive equal pay for work of equal value. By evaluating and comparing jobs based on skill, effort, responsibility, and working conditions rather than job titles, pay equity legislation promotes fairness and inclusivity in compensation practices.

Today, Unifor also calls on bargaining committees to be aware of negotiated Letters Of Understanding’s that state: “Parties agree that your workplace is Pay Equity Compliant and have met their legal obligations under the Pay Equity Act”. This language has a negative impact to the maintenance phase and retro payments that would be owed to women in the bargaining unit. Removing all barriers in collective agreements is one way to ensure Pay Equity is fully achieved for women.

One of the greatest equalizers to this injustice is women who belong to a union. Collective agreements lay out wage scales and are transparent for all members. Unions benefit women. Unifor is proud to be a union where women can thrive and grow without the many barriers faced by women in non-unionized workplaces.

Unifor supports the work of the Equal Pay Coalition and other groups organizing to make pay equity a reality. In solidarity, we also ask that you wear red and take a picture to share with the union, helping us show our collective support for pay transparency and the removal of all barriers to pay equity.

As we observe Equal Pay Day, let us reaffirm our commitment to gender equality and economic justice. Through collective action, advocacy, and solidarity, we can challenge stereotypes, dismantle barriers, and create workplaces where every worker is valued and compensated fairly. Together, we can build a future where women are paid equally to men in the same job providing us all with a more just and equitable society.