Unifor is the largest private-sector union in the country and represents nearly 20,000 workers across Newfoundland and Labrador in fisheries, forestry, oil and gas, telecommunications, retail, airlines, manufacturing, food processing and hospitality.
This provincial election, Unifor has outlined a plan to improve workers’ rights at work and at the bargaining table. Check out our demands to the political parties. Ask your candidates where they stand, and remember to vote.
Election Day is Thursday, May 16.
- Make work pay
Newfoundland and Labrador has one of the lowest minimum wages in the country. For a time, we had one of the highest, but we have failed to keep pace with improvements across the country. Some 70,000 workers in the province, mostly women, earn under $15 an hour.
Unifor with other unions and social justice organizations is calling for a $15 minimum wage. Everyone deserves a livable wage.
It’s time to make work pay for everyone.
- Make work better for workers
Newfoundland and Labrador has the worst vacation entitlements in Canada, unfair overtime pay, no sick days for non-union workers, and no requirement on employers to schedule work.
Basic workplace rules need modernizing. All workers deserve better working conditions and benefits.
It’s time to make work better for everyone.
- Strengthen collective bargaining rights
The recent two-year lockout of unionized workers at D.J. Composites in Gander demonstrated serious weaknesses with laws governing collective bargaining rights. Employers can use illegal bargaining tactics and face little to no consequences. They can lockout unionized workers and use replacements in an attempt to bust unions. Employers also use tactics like serial tendering and contracting out to circumvent union rights and suppress wages. Workers are forced to unionize over and over again and to re-apply for their own jobs often at a lower rate of pay.
The right to belong to a union and to fair and free collective bargaining is guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights, but we need stronger provincial laws and regulations to support these rights for everyone.
Strengthen collective bargaining rights for all workers.
4. Safety first in the oil and gas industry
Too often in the oil and gas sector, profit and production come before worker safety.
Workers are the workplace experts and they have the most to lose. Offshore oil workers work in one of the world’s harshest environments. We can and must do more to ensure their workplace is safer.
Unifor is calling on the Newfoundland and Labrador government to establish a more proactive health and safety plan for the oil and gas sector that starts with the creation of a new standalone safety regulator.
Workplace safety first.
FFAW-Unifor has compiled its own questionnaire for the political parties. It addresses fisheries and workers’ rights issues. Find them on Facebook for more information: facebook.com/FFAWunifor
For more information about this campaign and links to more resources, including our questionnaire to provincial party leaders, please visit unifor.org/NLvotes
Please vote on Thursday, May 16.
Download the NL Votes flyer
Download shareable content
