The History of Our Breath

During Black History Month, we celebrate the many achievements and contributions of Black Canadians who, throughout history, have done so much to make Canada the culturally diverse, compassionate and prosperous nation it is today.

This Black History Month we want to speak to the importance of our breath.

Breathing is an exchange of the experience, knowledge and contributions of Black people. At the 2017 Ontario Regional Council, Bermuda Public Service Union Vice President Linda Bogle Mienzer delivered a powerful speech about allowing people to breathe in their full identity in order to live. We see globally that is contested for Black people. The epidemic of extreme police violence, most recently epitomized by George Floyd’s murder at the hands of Minneapolis police, proves that “I can’t breathe” is still an urgent rallying call for systemic change.  Breath is vital and it is essential for life.

Black History Month should not only be about struggle, is about the resilience of people, but it is also about the determination, the success and accomplishments of Black people.

Just like the millions of people who marched, declaring boldly, that Black Lives Matter, our goal is for Black members to feel comfortable in their diverse identities to breathe in all of our spaces, including at their workplaces, union events and activities.

We will celebrate Black history, Black present and Black future, not only during the month of February, but every day.

This year, Unifor reaffirms our commitment to listen, acknowledge, support, and make space for Black people in our locals, workplaces, communities. We have many Black leaders in our union and we are committed to supporting their success.

Unifor will be featuring Black Unifor members from across the country in short videos speaking to their “History of their breath” on our social media channels.

Please share those and this powerful message, the attached shareable and please support virtual Black history events and organizations in your community.

Happy Black History Month.

Download the shareable

Canada is a big country. That is why, as a nation we are so heavily reliant on our airline industry with routes reaching every corner of the country. That is why there is so much at stake right now.

Think about it. Families today are spread across vast distances. Atlantic Canadians finding work in the oil patch. Western kids moving east for jobs in Toronto, Montreal or Ottawa. Older Canadians living out their dreams of retirement somewhere quieter.

Modern travel made it possible to do all that and still stay in touch with family. Before COVID-19 hit siblings separated by thousands of kilometres could remain close and grandparents could regularly visit their grandchildren. We could just hop on a plane – for some destinations, there seemed to be another flight every hour – and see our loved ones again.

The pandemic took that ease of travel away and showed us just how valuable it all was – and how precarious.

Without immediate help for the struggling airline industry, the disconnect brought on by lost flights and closed airline hubs could last for years – and in some places become permanent even as the rest of society begins to return to normal.

As I told the federal Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities this week, we can’t let that happen.

COVID-19 struck the airline industry early and hard, and has not let up.

Right now, 45% of Unifor’s members in the airline sector are either laid-off, furloughed or have had their jobs eliminated. At Air Canada 60% are out of work. At Porter and Sunwing, all of our members are furloughed or inactive.

Workers have also lost their health insurance, and more are given notice each day. Others are being forced to take pay cuts to avoid layoffs – all while wondering if they’ll even have a job to come back to.

It is a devastating blow for a sector that previously employed roughly 240,000 workers and contributed nearly $37 billion in Canada’s Gross Domestic Product. It’s a vital part of Canada’s trade in goods and services and a key linchpin in the tourism industry.

Airlines have drastically cut back on their routes, and even shuttered some locations – leaving entire communities with no flights at all, and diminishing hope that they will ever return.

Without government action now to save the industry, those fears are well-founded.

Any aid for the airline industry needs to put workers first. They have lost their work, or seen it severely cut back.

Pilots, for instance, must keep flying or risk losing their licenses. Any major restart of air travel, when it comes, could be hampered if workers – including pilots, air traffic controllers and mechanics – have not been able to keep up their hours to maintain their skills and qualifications.

Training and recertifying for pilots can take up to two years and is incredibly expensive, for instance.

Canada’s delayed response, then, could prove to be even more costly down the road.  So far, this country has provided less than $2 billion. Among G7 countries, only Italy has provided less.

We can and must do better.

We can’t just count on vaccines to be a cure-all for the economy – or the airline industry in particular. The economic impact of COVID-19 will continue long after we get this virus under control.

Airlines continue to suffer financially, just as they did after the 2008-09 financial crisis. It took the industry and its workers a decade to recover from that hit, and some workers continue to suffer.

The difference this time is that unlike in 2008-09, many of the airlines‘ clients are itching to fly as soon as they can. There’s a pent-up yearning for travel, to see loved ones, or to just not have to take another staycation, and we will need a viable airline industry ready to meet that demand.

The federal government is considering even tougher travel restrictions as part of its pandemic response as the second wave resists all other efforts and new variants take hold. Any such move needs to be matched with help for those hurt by the measures – including those in the airline industry.

We need a robust conversation about the role rapid testing can play in making travel safer.

As a big country, we have come to rely on the airline industry to keep family and friends close, even as they live long distances apart – and once we’ve got this virus whipped, a lot of people are going to want to renew those connections.

First, however, we need to make sure the airlines survive to ensure they can do that.

What would you do when the Ontario government only gives you 3 minutes to tell them what needs to be in the 2021 budget?

You make it work, because Ontario’s workers need a lot to change! Naureen Rizvi runs down the top union priorities in this presentation to the Treasury Board.

“In 2018, one of this government’s first moves was to eliminate recently and hard fought for paid sick days and planned minimum wage increases,” began Rizvi. “The pandemic has shown that both of those policy moves were a mistake.”

In its 2021 budget submission, Unifor highlighted the critical need for policy changes and investment in the province.

Workers have spent years campaigning for a dramatic overhaul of Ontario’s for-profit long-term care sector. Unifor demanded that the government abandon the 4-year phase in and immediately fund 4 hours of direct care per day, and fast-track PSW training to improve staffing levels.

Outside of the LTC sector, workers are still left without support and protection. Unifor proposed that the government ensure all workers are paid for the value that they bring to society.

• Revoke Bill 124, that caps the wages of low-paid public servants and stomps on their rights to collective bargaining
• Extend the COVID-19 wage top ups, and make them permanent
• Re-introduce a higher minimum wage, at 60% of median full time wages (2020 would have been $15.86 by this standard)

To invest in Ontario’s infrastructure, for years to come, Unifor asked the province once again, to come forward with the one-thirds funding for new TTC streetcars, built here in Thunder Bay.

Rizvi closed with a brief call to action for MPPs, “The people of this province have shown undeniable resilience in the face of a cruel year. Your actions in this budget will determine if those workers and their families get relief and a better tomorrow.”

Read more about Unifor’s plans for the Ontario Budget in the union’s 2021 Budget Submission.

As originally published by The Toronto Star

By Jerry Dias

Now more than ever, Canadian workers need our political leaders to act swiftly and decisively to support them, their families and communities.

As the cascading economic crisis grows worse each day in tandem with daily record-breaking COVID-19 case counts, no such leadership has stepped up for the hundreds of workers in the Bombardier Thunder Bay plant.

With only enough work to sustain itself until the end of this year and under new ownership by Alstom, based in France, the threat of a permanent closure has never been more real.

The threat this situation poses to the livelihood of hundreds workers, their families and the economy is enormous. There are short and long-term solutions. The first requires only the stroke of a pen.

The City of Toronto has already agreed to fund its portion of transit vehicle purchases from Bombardier, including 60 new streetcars and 420 subway cars. However, to date, neither Ottawa nor Queen’s Park has agreed to come to the table and ante up their share.

All they have to do is sign on, the cars get built and the jobs get created in Thunder Bay and Toronto. It’s just that simple.

We cannot allow an order book to stand empty at a plant so vital to Ontario’s economy, under new offshore ownership no less, and not expect a catastrophe.

It is unacceptable to let this scenario play out with politicians shrugging off their fundamental responsibility to lead at this crucial moment.

We know that Toronto’s transit system ultimately needs these vehicles to create more capacity. This need has been known and identified repeatedly at every level of government.

Before COVID-19, the transit system in Toronto was already well over capacity. Today, more room is needed for social distancing protocols. In the future, the system will still need these vehicles if we’re going to have any hope of a rapid economic recovery.

Our union has held numerous meetings for more than two years with politicians of all stripes. We were joined by the City of Thunder Bay, the Chamber of Commerce and Bombardier Transportation who all supported the efforts to no avail.

Time is a luxury the workers in Thunder Bay don’t have. As political foot-dragging and partisan finger-pointing continues, workers and their families face an increasingly uncertain future. We’re at serious risk of losing a vital part of our industrial capacity that will almost certainly move us further away from an economic recovery that can’t come soon enough.

Besides the jobs at the Thunder Bay plant, there’s the jobs at supplier plants, its contractors and all the businesses that benefit from the good wages its workers earn.

A strong post-pandemic recovery has to be based on good jobs. We can’t afford to put these good jobs at any further risk. Already, too many Bombardier workers are on layoff awaiting new contracts. Once the federal and provincial governments sign off, we can secure those jobs and bring back more.

We need to prevent these situations from happening in the first place. I can recall the excruciating moment in 2018 when the federal government chose to award a VIA Rail contract to a Siemens plant in California. That order should have gone to Bombardier to support Canadian manufacturing. Hundreds of millions of dollars were siphoned away from Ontario.

It’s high time we start seeing genuine long-term support for our manufacturing workers with ‘Buy Canadian’ policies. These exist already in several jurisdictions, including the United States. More importantly, they work.

If there’s a lesson to be learned from the pandemic, it’s that a strong and well-supported manufacturing base is vital to our economy.

When global medical supplies dried up, it was Bombardier workers who came through and manufactured the ventilators our province needed. As the second wave of the pandemic continues, we may very well need them again.

These workers had our backs, and now our politicians should have theirs.