National President's Recommendations
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Recommendation 1: Defending the Right to Strike, Empowering Workers Everywhere
Our progress as workers is dependent on free and fair collective bargaining, which includes the right to strike. Throughout history, working people in Canada have fought for and won the right to strike. Through strike action, workers have collectively won improvements to their working conditions, fought for historical and generational gains and secured a fairer share of the profits they generate from their work. Despite this fact, some Unifor members in sectors such as health care know all too well the challenges of bargaining in a context where the right to strike is severely restricted or entirely prohibited.
The use of scab labour by employers during labour disputes undermines the right to strike, undermines our right to fair and free collective bargaining and to freedom of association. It is union busting. This is why our union has been fighting for many years for anti-scab legislation in every jurisdiction of the country. In 2024, thanks to sustained efforts by our union and the broader labour movement, Canada’s first federal anti-scab legislation was adopted.
We must celebrate this historical achievement. It was only possible because of the countless workers who stood on picket lines while their employers blatantly employed replacement workers to do their jobs. It was made possible because workers and their unions never stopped fighting, never stopped organizing.
But this is no time for complacency. Even with new powers granted to us by the House of Commons, corporations are retaliating. They are working together to carefully target workers’ rights, to promote anti-worker laws and measures, to undermine collective bargaining, and to eliminate our constitutionally-protected right to collectively withdraw our labour. Our right to strike cannot be taken for granted.
In the face of growing corporate power, and at a time when workers and their families face increasing economic headwinds, collective bargaining and the right to strike must be strengthened, not undermined.
As Unifor National President, I recommend that Unifor:
- Pursue the fight for anti-scab legislation in every Canadian jurisdiction so that it becomes a standard for fair and equitable labour relations across the country;
- Demand that political parties in every jurisdiction recognize and pledge to support the right to strike;
- Oppose measures to impose compulsory interest arbitration and fight to expand the right to strike by challenging illegitimate designations of “essential” work, wherever possible; and
- Actively support actions by global union federations in their legal defence of the right to strike enshrined by the International Labour Organization (ILO) Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention, 1948 (No. 87).
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Recommendation 2 - Building Canada’s Industrial Economy
Canada operates in a global economy that is changing and is affected by many factors, including shifting capital investment, climate change, new technologies and automation, geopolitics and conflict, health crises, and changes to trade regimes.
Canada’s working class must act together to leverage our labour, skills, knowledge and energy to drive new investments in productive industries that will build Canada’s future. To support this, we must establish comprehensive fact-based industrial strategies that will build wealth, establish and sustain good jobs, and guarantee prosperous communities for generations.
Federal, provincial, and municipal governments make investments that could support industrial production in Canada. The procurement of goods and services, domestically, is an essential component of industrial strategies to address the needs of our country while supporting jobs here in Canada.
Canada’s manufacturing sector has been hard hit by governments who chose not to support continued investment. However, government orientation to the economy since the pandemic has changed and a more active government has secured tens and tens of billions in industrial investments. These investments support growth in industrial jobs. They also support public services, such as health care and education.
Unifor’s membership and breadth of experience across more than 20 sectors create a credible and well-informed voice to influence industrial strategies that meet the country’s needs and create good jobs.
As Unifor National President, I recommend that Unifor:
- Launch a national cross-sector campaign to support investment in Canada’s industrial economy, which will:
- Engage and draw from our union’s industry councils and membership to inform our economic vision for the future;
- Promote best practice public procurement policy in Canada, that directs public spending for Canadian content, supports domestic economic growth, environmental sustainability, and creates good, union jobs;
- Advocate for procurement policy reform across various levels of government, as well as identify specific and strategic areas on which the union can engage to advance Canada’s industrial development and industrial strategy; and
- Develop a plan targeting government officials and relevant procuring entities, at the federal, provincial, territorial and municipal levels, as required.
- Launch a national cross-sector campaign to support investment in Canada’s industrial economy, which will:
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Recommendation 3 – Committing to Politics for Workers
Unions don’t exist in a vacuum. Our strength and ability to represent our members is affected by the broader climate around us, including the impact governments have on our trade union rights, the rights of unions to exist and to participate in free and fair collective bargaining, the strength of health and safety laws, the quality of health care and education, minimum wages, pay equity and women’s reproductive rights. Governments also shape economic policy, which of course has a huge impact on the economic and social well-being of our members.
Simply, our lives extend beyond the workplace. From our democratic rights to the taxes we pay, from the livability of our communities and cities to well-formed industrial policies that create good jobs, they are all impacted by politics and political decisions.
As well, as trade unionists, we care about social equality within our communities and within our country: about discrimination, the lives of the aged, about poverty and mental health.
All of this is “politics.”
In 2014, Unifor delegates debated and adopted “Politics for workers: Unifor’s political project.” This paper outlined a vision for our union and politics. It was based on our broad, societal objectives for all working people, beyond the realm of partisan politics.
Today, just as 10 years ago, our union believes that our work extends beyond the bargaining table. We believe that politics matter because the political decisions of today affect the entirety of our lives.
If trade unionists know one thing for certain, it is that individually, the worker is in no position to challenge management. Collective action is fundamental to defend our interests and achieve our goals. The same is true politically.
Unifor’s policies on political relationships and elections are designed to be principled, independent, balanced and transformational. And building political change is related to building our own power as a union, to building worker power.
Unifor was created to meet the challenges of today and to make a difference.
To accomplish this, we need a long range framework and short and medium term policies and strategies. In the shifting realities of politics in Canada, it is clear that our political project is only just beginning.
As Unifor National President, I recommend that Unifor:
- Renew its commitment to building its own political project, one that recognizes the power workers have when they come together for broad transformational change that benefits working people collectively;
- Update the 2014 Politics for workers paper to represent the political context of today and engage Unifor members at upcoming Regional Councils in 2024-2025 on Unifor’s political project;
- Play an active role in major Canadian elections in the next year, including known elections in British Columbia, Saskatchewan, and New Brunswick, as well as possible elections in Ontario and Nova Scotia. The union must also prepare a national strategy to engage directly and meaningfully in the forthcoming federal election; and
- Roll out election-related information and analysis, including on the need for industrial strategies in Canada, on key party policies and platforms, as well as candidate voting records and public positions, to better inform members’ voting decisions.
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Recommendation 4 - Affirming Truth and Reconciliation in Canada
September 30 is a national statutory holiday to recognize the widespread abuse at residential schools, honour survivors, and work towards reconciliation.
The day’s message, “Every Child Matters,” is a plea to value and care for all children, something that was not the standard held by the churches administering residential schools, nor by provincial governments, nor by the Government of Canada.
Unifor members have long organized for justice on Orange Shirt Day. The ongoing discovery of remains of missing children on the sites of former residential schools confirms what Indigenous communities have said for decades—thousands of children went to the school and never returned home. Recognizing the painful history and ongoing impact of residential schools and colonial violence is integral to the reconciliation process.
As Unifor National President, I recommend that Unifor:
- Affirm its commitment to the 94 Calls to Action resulting from the 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission;
- Also affirm its commitment to the 231 Calls for Justice that subsequently resulted from the Final Report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls; and
- Encourages local unions to further Truth and Reconciliation by learning about the Calls to Action and Calls for Justice, developing membership engagement, participating in Indigenous Solidarity actions, and promoting education and awareness, including through participation in Unifor’s Turtle Island education series.