{"id":27424,"date":"2022-08-10T14:38:00","date_gmt":"2022-08-10T18:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/1.6547144"},"modified":"2022-08-10T14:38:00","modified_gmt":"2022-08-10T18:38:00","slug":"unifor-membership-elects-lana-payne-as-new-leader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/business\/unifor-elects-new-leader-1.6547144?cmp=rss","title":{"rendered":"Unifor membership elects Lana Payne as new leader"},"content":{"rendered":"

In its first contested election in almost 10 years, Canada’s largest private-sector union has elected Lana Payne as the new national president of Unifor. <\/p>\n

She is the first woman to hold the position.<\/p>\n

“We have to consider that economic policy should be working for workers, and not just for a few corporations in this country,” said Payne after being elected. <\/p>\n

Payne was previously national secretary-treasurer of Unifor. She defeated executive assistant to the president Scott Doherty and Unifor Local 444 president Dave Cassidy.<\/p>\n

In a statement, Unifor said as part of her campaign, Payne championed the need for greater transparency and accountability in the union.<\/p>\n

Payne initiated investigation into former president<\/h2>\n

In her role as secretary-treasurer, Payne initiated an independent external investigation into former Unifor president Jerry Dias in January. <\/p>\n

Dias was accused of taking money for recommending a company supplying COVID-19 test kits to Unifor employers<\/a>. He announced his eventual retirement from Unifor’s leadership in March. <\/p>\n

“The constitutional breach dealt a severe blow to the credibility of the union,”  said Larry Savage, a professor of Labour Studies at Brock University who followed the race. “It was imperative that candidates laid out clear plans on how they would address the issue – and be transparent – restore confidence of the union in the eyes of members and the general public and it looks like Lana convinced delegates she was the person to do it.” <\/p>\n

Dias was first elected national president in 2013. He was the first president of Unifor, which was formed after the Canadian Auto Workers Union merged with<\/a> the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada.<\/p>\n

Uncertainty, inflation hurting workers<\/h2>\n

Savage said Unifor has a lot of clout at the bargaining table \u2014 and at the ballot box. <\/p>\n

 “There is an opportunity here for the new president of Unifor to seize this moment in the Canadian economy – we have record low unemployment – you have inflation that is nibbling away at people’s paycheques – it’s an opportunity that is ripe for unionization.” <\/p>\n

WATCH | Windsor auto workers react to Unifor leadership race: <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

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Windsor auto workers react<\/h3>\n
3 hours ago<\/span><\/p>\n
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Duration <\/span>0:51<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Unifor workers at the Stellantis assembly plant in Windsor weigh in on what issues they would like to see their new leadership make a priority<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

When Windsor auto workers were asked about their reaction to the union’s new leadership, most pointed to the need for more investment as their biggest priority.<\/p>\n

“It’s been a rocky road the last couple of years with COVID and now parts shortages. So a little bit of stability, a little bit of just calm in the waters \u2014 I think everybody will get back into the groove again,” said Dino Gatto. <\/p>\n

“I think there’s a lot of good coming out of the union. I think there’s things that we can always improve on \u2026 Contract time is next year, so hopefully we’ll see some of those things come together.” <\/p>\n

Unifor represents more than 300,000 workers across Canada in a wide range of industries.<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In its first contested election in almost 10 years, Canada’s largest private-sector union has elected Lana Payne as the new national president of Unifor.  She is the first woman to hold the position. “We have to...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27426,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[331],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewwbradley.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27424"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewwbradley.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewwbradley.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewwbradley.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewwbradley.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewwbradley.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27424\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewwbradley.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewwbradley.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewwbradley.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewwbradley.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}