Unifor Local 302 President’s Report - April 25, 2022

Monday April 25, 2022

We continued our fight for the Group of 11 on April 6 at Meadow Park. The job action was well attended by Local 302 members and other area locals. Everyone felt it was important to keep the pressure on leading into our arbitration on April 20. We managed to get ahead of SEIU and I want to personally thank the committees for all their hard work especially during the Easter weekend when I was emailing looking for additional information for our brief. Mike Yam presented an amazing brief and his his closing/rebuttal right out of the park! Now our fate is in the hands of Arbitrator White, Robert Buchanan and the Employer nominee.

On April 12 and 19 we held job actions at Chelsey Park Oxford and the new facility that is being built on Wharncliffe Road. It is critical that we keep the attention on Southbridge their lack of respect both at the bargaining table and through the re-build and new build process is not acceptable. Their lack of empathy to the reality of job loss is not going to be taken laying down. Every chance we have we are going to push back against this Employer to ensure our members seniority rights are respected.

The Provincial Government continues to dump an endless supply of money into the province in an attempt to win the upcoming election. Unifor has been running television ads against the Ontario Hospital Association and Bill 124. Bill 124 was implemented by the Ford Government and caps public sector workers at 1% for a three-year period. Not only is this impacting our hospitals, but we have seen two or our nursing homes as well as social services and shelters impacted by this bill. This only adds to the lack of respect and dignity that our members are feeling. We need to continue our push for proper compensation for healthcare workers.

Unifor now has a three-way race for the vacancy of National President. Lana Payne has decided to throw her hat into the ring along with Dave Cassidy and Scott Doherty. The Executive Board met via Zoom with all three candidates to hear about their vision for Unifor moving forward and to ask a few questions of our own. We will be having further discussions and will report back on who we feel the best candidate is for us to be supporting for National President.

Unfortunately, it looks like we will be having a special election prior to the Constitutional Convention in August. No dates have been announced for the special election.

Just a reminder to everyone that the educational scholarship applications are due back into the Local by May 20. To date we have sent out 34 scholarship applications.

Bargaining News

We successfully ratified with DASO congratulations to the membership and bargaining committee on your new collective agreement.

Upcoming Negotiations

Cedarcrossing, Extendicare, Alexandra Hospital, Chartwell London and Parkhill

Arbitration/Workplace Actions

Chelsey Park Nursing Home