Jerry Dias, the new president of Unifor, speaks at the unios founding convention on Labour Day, 2013. (Photo: Unifor)
Unifor, the unio looking to represent Toyota workers in three Canadian plants, is set for a vote that will be closely watched by labour groups after a failed attempt at unioization at another U.S. car plant last month.
The unio, which was formed last year with the merger of the Canadian Auto Workers and the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers unio of Canada, said Monday it had filed an application with the ontario Labour Relations Board to represent more than 6,500 workers at Toyotas auto plants in Ontario.
Unifor national president Jerry Dias said there has been significant support for the organizing drive.
We are absolutely confident that we have enough cards that meets the ontario government threshold or we wouldnt be here today, Dias said during a news conference, although he declined to say how many of the workers had signed unio cards to date.
Top concerns for Toyota workers include wages, pensions and workplace issues, Dias added, noting that if the certification is successful, Unifor would go into bargaining immediately.
Toyota has three Canadian assembly plants — two in Cambridge and one in Woodstock, Ont. Unifor wants to bargain for all of them as one unit.
Dias said he expected the vote to begin next Monday, with the results released later in April.
If it succeeds, they would be the first Toyota plants in North America to become unioized, and come as a welcome change for the labour movement after workers at a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tenn., were unsuccessful in their own unioization drive led by the United Auto Workers last month.
Dias said he expected the process to go much more smoothly in Ontario, and dismissed concerns about the impact unioization may have on the car companys wish to remain or expand in Canada.
People today are a lot smarter, theyre not buying (that) nonsense anymore, he said.
Toyota is here because of what the Toyota team members bring to the party. Theyre here because of what ontario brings to the party.
Anthony Faria, an automotive industry expert at the University of Windsor, said Unifor wouldnt be calling the vote is it didnt think it had a good chance at winning, because losing would be a real embarrassment to them just as it was for the UAW.
The UAW went into that certainly very confident they were going to win that vote and they did not, and they have taken a real black eye from it, said Faria.
Toyota, he added, has worked hard to maintain a unio-free environment by matching concessions made by the Big Three automakers and ensuring workers are well compensated.
But some concerns have popped up around pensions and contract workers which have created new interest in the unio. If this move is successful, Faria added, it may allow Unifor to go after Honda, another foreign company operating in Ontario, one wher unioization bids have also failed in the past.
Dias insisted the main issue around the Toyota vote wasnt Unifor or its relevance however, but rather the Toyota team members and their desire to have a collective voice.
A spokesman for Toyota, however, said the company didnt see the need for a unio or what Unifor could add to its workplace that Toyota hasnt already provided.
We have a package thats at or near the top of the industry, we dont understand what theyre going to negotiate, or what theyre going to negotiate away, said Greig Mordue of Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada Inc.
We understand what Unifor wants, we dont understand what our team members will receive.
Mordue said the company will review the application closely ahead of the vote.
At the end of the day, our team members are going to have to decide if theyre prepared to hand over $6 million in dues to Unifor, and more specifically if theyre prepared to work about 28 hours a year to support Unifor dues and if they think theres value in that, said Mordue.
We don think there is, but our team members will ultimately decide.
