The fifth issue of the Solidarity Movement newsletter has been published.
Issue #5 features:
The election for Local 222 Unifor Ontario Regionals Council delegates
A resolution calling for an Ontario Unifor conference to discuss strategies to achieve Equal Pay for Equal Work and an End to Precarious Employment
“Every Unit Needs a Voice” – the fight for the democratic principle of having bargaining units elect their own delegates to Conventions and Councils.
Here is the newsletter, as well as a download button. We hope you enjoy it. Please share it on social media, by email, or by downloading and printing for people where you work.
Contact us if you would like additional newsletters for your workplace. You can also let us know if have a question, a comment, or suggestions for future newsletters. Send an email to [email protected]
The first vote for Local 222 President was extremely close:
This result is a powerful indication that the members of Local 222 desire a change in the direction of our Local. Because no candidate received a majority, there will now be a run-off election between the top two finishers. Voting days, times and locations are posted in each workplace, and are also posted on the Local 222 website (scroll down to find your workplace) . In addition, there is voting at the Local 222 Union Hall in Oshawa on Monday, June 6and Thursday, June 9 from 8 am to 4 pm.
The fourth issue of the Solidarity Movement newsletter has been published.
Issue #4 features:
The Jerry Dias ethics breach and why a more thorough investigation is required
Racism not welcome here
Amazon Labor Union Victory
Resolutions for the Unifor Constitutional Convention – Improve Pensions Now, Equal Wages and Pensions in Bargaining and Legislation
#WheresMyContract
Here is the newsletter, as well as a download button. We hope you enjoy it. Please share it on social media, by email, or by downloading and printing for people where you work.
Contact us if you would like additional newsletters for your workplace. You can also let us know if have a question, a comment, or suggestions for future newsletters. Send an email to [email protected]
Update – The Local 222 membership meeting on Thursday, May 5, 2022voted to send this letter to the Unifor National Executive Board.
The allegations surrounding Jerry Dias are very serious and we must urge that the scope of the investigation be immediately broadened. A letter has been drafted—it needs your support at the May 5 membership meeting to be sent.Here is the letter:
Re: Request for Additional Investigation Resulting from Constitutional Complaint
Like many members of Unifor, we are shocked and frustrated by the revelation of ethical violations by former Unifor National President Jerry Dias. This situation raises many questions that demand answers. If members’ confidence in the union is to be repaired the scope of the investigation within Unifor must be immediately broadened. While it is clear that a serious breach of the Constitution has occurred if Jerry Dias accepted money from a supplier in exchange for promoting their product, it is not clear that this is the only breach. It is not clear that his actions or the actions of others do not cross other lines warranting further investigation.
Members are aware that the incident involving a bag of cash and alleged improper dealings with a supplier company, is now in the hands of the Toronto Police financial crimes unit. However, there are important questions beyond the details of the specific incident forwarded to the Toronto Police Service that must be thoroughly investigatedto restore member’s confidence in our union.
Concerns that should be further investigated include, but are not limited to:
Unifor stated at the press conference on March 23, 2022 that “We are treating this as an isolated incident.” However, there must be a thorough investigation to find out whether or not it is an isolated incident. Unifor is requested to undertake the type of investigation that is necessary to make that determination.
Unifor is requested to examine and report if there are policies or practices that facilitated, encouraged, or failed to prevent serious ethical lapses? Are there systemic issues to be corrected? Unifor reported that former President Dias “promoted a supplier’s rapid test kits to various Unifor employers, either directly or through Unifor staff under his direction”. What is wrong with the culture of our union that this did not set off red flags?
These allegations have created serious unease about the potential misuse of dues money. Unifor is requested to complete a thorough audit of spending practices by top leadership, elected and appointed, to ensure there has not been improper personal benefit or misuse of funds.
The test of our union’s integrity is just beginning. Unifor cannot claim transparency and accountability as a union if we leave important questions unanswered. Now is the time for hard conversations, evaluating our direction, and repairing our relationship with our members.
Both of these resolutions wereendorsed by the Unifor Local 222 membership meeting on Thursday, May 5, 2022.
Local Unions can, and should, send resolutions to the Unifor Constitutional Convention to advocate for the policies our members need. Here are two important resolutions on improving pensions, and getting back to the fundamental union principle of equal wages, benefits and pensions. Both of these resolutions were endorsed by the Local 444 membership meeting, but the more Locals that support them the better.
Equal Wages, Benefits and Pensions
Resolution for the Unifor Constitutional Convention 2022
Improve Pensions Now
Resolution for the Unifor Constitutional Convention 2022
These resolutions will be proposed to the Local 222 membership meeting on Thursday, May 5 at 3 pm at the Local 222 Hall – 1425 Phillip Murray Ave. in Oshawa.
Please attend the meeting to help get these resolutions passed.
Other Ideas for Resolutions?
If you have other ideas for resolutions you would like to see adopted write them down and bring them to the meeting on May 5. If you are unsure how to write a resolution, we are happy to help. The deadline for Locals to submit resolutions or Constitutional amendments is May 10, 2022 at 5 pm ET. The process is described in the Call Letter.
Here are the pages from the Call Letter that describe how Locals submit resolutions or amendments, and guidelines for writing a resolution. If you have any other questions – please contact us at:
The third issue of the Solidarity Movement newsletter has been published.
Issue #3 features: a report on the strike by John Deere workers in the US who won wage and pension increases and defeated the company plan to take away defined benefit pensions from new hires; highlights from the first Local 222 paper, the War Worker, in 1943; a call for the Local to provide more information and involvement by supplier workers in negotiations for their first contracts; and a commentary on the abandonment of the principle of equal pay for equal work when the union agrees to 4% payments for some workers and not others.
From the article:
As 2nd tier workers again feel the sting of being left behind we should ask, ‘What has happened to our union?’ Has our leadership learned to accept management’s perspective so well they forgot the workers perspective?
Equal pay for equal work. Period. This is a fundamental union value and helps to build solidarity and strength within the union. Anything less and we allow the company to divide and destroy us. The membership needs to get the union leadership back in line.
Here is the newsletter, as well as a download button. We hope you enjoy it. Please share it on social media, by email, or by downloading and printing for people where you work.
Contact us if you would like additional newsletters for your workplace. You can also let us know if have a question, a comment, or suggestions for future newsletters. Send an email to [email protected]
Did You Know … That the General Motors operations in Oshawa were completely converted to military production in 1942, and that the first issues of the Local 222 paper in 1943 were called the War Worker?
The November 29, 1943 issue of the War Worker headlines a full labour slate for City Council, Board of Education, and Public Utilities – sponsored by the Oshawa & District Labour Council which included Local 222. “The working people of Oshawa form the majority of the city’s population … If all union members and their relatives turn out to vote there is no doubt that the labor candidates will be elected to all civic posts.”
Other topics covered in the War Worker: the Credit Union, the Women’s Auxiliary, many of the feeder plants, meetings of the strong stewards body, reports on union meetings (a resolution urging the Canadian government to admit refugees from Nazi regimes), and public forums on political topics.
General Motors military production workers in 1943 – credit Canadian Automotive Museum
Members were urged to pay their monthly dues (which were voluntary at the time) at the dues wicket in the Local 222 offices at 17 ½ Simcoe St. N., above the A&P store.
Issues of the War Worker from 1943, and of the Oshaworker from 1944 and 1994 to present are available on the Unifor Local 222 website.
The complete issues of the War Worker for November 29, 1943 and December 11, 1943 are available in pdf form by clicking the buttons below:
The leadership of Unifor Local 222 has stated that negotiations are under way for new units of supplier workers that have been hired to perform many jobs at the revived truck assembly operations of GM Oshawa. Solidarity Movement members in Oshawa are calling for the Local to provide more information and ways to get involved for these workers.
Many of the workers are former Local 222 members who lost their jobs in December 2019 when the companies they worked for ended operations at the same time as the GM assembly lines came to a halt. Most of them received pitifully low severance. The new units include TFT Global (doing work formerly done by Syncreon and CEVA), Android, Auto Warehousing, and others.
Here is the Solidarity Movement statement. There is also a pdf that can be printed and distributed.
The second issue of the Solidarity Movement newsletter has been published.
Issue #2 features: a review of developments in the UAW, where a group of rank-and-file members is building a movement for more democracy and a fight against concessions; a short history of the occupation of Houdaille Industries in Oshawa in 1980 which helped win important improvements to legislated severance language for all Ontarians; and a report on the ongoing strike by 700 workers at De Havilland Aircraft.
The front page feature calls on Local 222 members to sign up for online membership meetings. Local 222 has arranged for membership meetings to be held on Zoom but the leadership has not done a good job of getting the news out to members. All the meetings have been cancelled for lack of a quorum of 50 members and we haven’t had a Local membership meeting in 2 years. The lack of commitment by the leadership is seen by the fact that very few Executive Board members or in-plant elected reps have signed up themselves. The newsletter provides the necessary information in an effort to get more members engaged:
How can we accept this behaviour? Change is needed, and YOU, the members, can make it happen. Without meetings the leadership isn’t accountable for their decisions, they don’t have to answer questions in an open forum, and they don’t have to engage the membership.
There is no democracy without meetings. We don’t get to ask questions or raise concerns about problems in our workplaces, elections, or COVID. We can’t vote on appeals, motions, or financial decisions. We can’t make collective decisions. Failure to hold meetings denies our DEMOCRATIC right to participate in running our Local.
If 50 members sign up we will have a quorum and the meeting should be held. Please sign up now. Our union is only as strong as the members who participate.
Here is the newsletter, as well as a download button. We hope you enjoy it. Please share it on social media, by email, or by downloading and printing for people where you work.
Click the button to download a copy of the newsletter to print and share.
Newsletter article on UAWD with clickable links:
Rank and File UAW Members Fight Against Corruption & Concessions and For Democracy
An exciting new rank and file movement is growing in the UAW – the union representing most autoworkers in the US. Local 222 belonged to the UAW until the formation of the CAW in 1985.
According to their mission statement Unite All Workers for Democracy (UAWD) is a grassroots movement of UAW members united in the common goal of building a more democratic, and accountable union.”
Why Was UAWD Formed?
The UAWD believes, “the rank-and-file of our union MUST be the highest authority in the UAW—whether at our Conventions, at our Locals, at the bargaining table, or on the shop floors of our workplaces across the country.”
The recent corruption scandal in the UAW has highlighted the need for reform – a dozen high-ranking UAW leaders, including two former International Presidents, have pleaded guilty to corruption and collaborating with corporate managers who wanted to keep union heads “fat, dumb, and happy” in order to “grease the skids” for concessions.
The UAWD points out that, “Over the last 70-plus years of our union’s history, we have been beholden to a one-party state. That one-party—the Administration Caucus—has concentrated power in the hands of a select few. In the last forty years alone, the Administration Caucus has engaged in various partnership schemes with the very same corporations that continually cut our jobs, attempt to gut our benefits, and have outsourced countless good-paying union jobs.”
The deals the UAW negotiate in the States greatly affect Canadian bargaining. It’s harder to make gains here when the concessions are so brutal there.
The US prosecutor investigating corruption in the UAW has mandated reforms including a referendum of all UAW members in November to decide whether to continue with a system where members elect delegates to go to Convention and those delegates elect the leaders, or have the leadership elected directly by all UAW members in good standing (One Member One Vote).
The UAWD is currently mobilizing support for “One Member One Vote” . They believe this will be a step to rooting out the corruption plaguing the UAW. There are strong feelings on both sides of this debate.
Jerry Dias announced at the Retired Workers Council that he will retire as Unifor National President next August and said “we are having discussions about the best replacement”. Whether or not you support one member one vote, the membership should be freely determining who is our next President, and not have it predetermined behind closed doors.
Members of the Solidarity Movement in Unifor Local 222 have published issue number 1 of a new newsletter for members of their local. Distribution in the many workplaces represented by Local 222 began today. There is a regular history column – “Did you know?” – that features accounts of inspiring battles from our past. There is also an article on the important fight against 2-tier contracts by striking Nestle workers and the solidarity they received from the community, other workers, and members of Local 222.
The newsletter also highlights a long list of problems faced by Local 222 members, but also presents practical solutions for bargaining, communication, greater democracy, accountability, and solidarity – which are the key principles of the Solidarity Movement.
In the words of the newsletter:
The purpose of a Local Union is to bring together the members to advance their common interests. The top leaders of Local 222 fail to do that in so many areas – they have lost their way.
We have poor communication, no membership meetings, two-tier contracts, constantly eroding wages and benefits, and retired members have been left behind. It is outrageous that we pay our President and Financial Secretary almost $150,000 a year each, and they see no reason for restraint even though our dues income is down substantially.
Here are some ideas for positive change. If you agree with them – join us. Be part of discussing and preparing proposals to membership meetings. Help support candidates that pledge to implement policies that will benefit all the members.
