Tag: Local 222

Solidarity Movement Newsletter #5

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.
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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]

Join our Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/292972735372052

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Elect Rebecca Keetch!

Local 222 President: Run-off Election

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 6 and Thursday, June 9 from 8 am to 4 pm.

Your vote counts – Change is possible!

Change Starts With You and I – A song

Lyrics composed by a Local 222 member.

Solidarity Movement Newsletter #4

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.

download

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]

Join our Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/292972735372052

Solidarity Movement Facebook Group

Jerry Dias Ethics Breach – Thorough Investigation Needed

Update – The Local 222 membership meeting on Thursday, May 5, 2022 voted 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 investigated to restore member’s confidence in our union.

Concerns that should be further investigated include, but are not limited to:

  1. 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. 
  1. 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?
  1. 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.

Solidarity Movement Newsletter #3

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.

download

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]

Join our Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/292972735372052

Solidarity Movement Facebook Group

The War Worker

1943 Issues of the Local 222 Newspaper

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?

Workers in Oshawa, about 50% women, manufactured trucks, ambulances, artillery tractors, tank hulls, and fuselages for the Mosquito bomber. 1,689 GM employees joined the armed forces during WWII, and 73 were killed.

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:

November 29, 1943
december 11, 1943



Oshawa Supplier Workers Deserve Information and Involvement

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.

Download pdf