We have all seen the incredible images of young families holding up babies to closed windows at long term care facilities, showing new grandchildren to residents under lockdown.
Older children hold up bristol board signs reading “We love you, Grandma” as residents and family members press their hands to opposite sides the glass.
As heartwarming as these images are, there is a sadness to them because of the important emotional connection that is lost and so important to the health of long-term care residents.
We’re calling relatives and neighbours to check in on them, reaching into the pantry to make groceries last just a little longer, and relying on health care workers to help us navigate the new world of isolation, screening, and care.
For me, it means negotiating for Unifor members over the phone instead of across the table and talking to news networks by Skype from my kitchen.
For too many, the COVID-19 crisis means sudden layoff and isolation.
This year the annual United Nations’ World Water Day comes at a pivotal moment for Canada. Defending freshwater resources has been a growing concern for Indigenous communities—and for good reason. Safe drinking water is a human right, but it is far from something that many remote First Nations can take for granted.
There are at least 61 long-term and dozens more short-term drinking water advisories in effect for Indigenous communities across Canada. Some communities haven’t had access to safe drinking water for decades.
We are living in unprecedented times, and the window to flatten the curve is closing fast, and so is the opportunity to minimize the economic fallout of a pandemic.
The Covid-19 pandemic presents a tremendous challenge – both to human health and to the economy.
The solution to protecting our health, by closing the border and asking Canadians to stay home, is a wise move to prevent the spread, but it will have a swift and devastating effect on businesses who will be forced to issue massive layoffs or reduce hours.
On March 8 we celebrate, we mourn and we double down on our determination to do more.
International Women’s Day this year comes on the 50th anniversary of two important events – the abortion caravan to Ottawa and the Royal Commission on the Status of Women.
These landmarks are worth celebrating, even as we recognize the work that still needs to be done.
Members of Unifor’s predecessor unions were involved in the caravan, which began in Vancouver and made its way to Ottawa to push back against changes to Canada’s Criminal Code on abortion.
Premier Jason Kenney’s second budget sends a clear message to working people that they don’t matter. His 2020 budget doesn’t create jobs, it kills them, while exposing Alberta’s most vulnerable to even more insecurity.
Kenney is doubling down on the same austerity strategy that has failed to produce results in Alberta or anywhere else in the world. His massive spending cuts coupled with tax breaks for the rich are the last thing Alberta needs.
By now, the entire country is aware of the ten week long lockout at the Federated Co-operatives Limited (FCL) refinery in Regina. What fewer people know is the length to which the company has worked to prolong it. It has deftly used numerous systemic advantages to try to break our union. FCL has been let off the hook time and again. It has to stop.
On December 5, 2019, FCL locked out 730 members of Unifor Local 594 after walking back on its promise to keep workers’ pensions in place.
Today is a heartbreaking day for forestry workers in Nova Scotia and a shameful reminder of the disregard Premier Stephen McNeil has for working people.
A skeleton crew will stay at Northern Pulp until April 21 to winterize the facility. The rest of the 230 Unifor members at Northern Pulp walked through the mill’s gates for the last time today, leaving behind long-held careers, the certainty of good family-supporting jobs in their hometown, and the promise of a dignified retirement with a good union pension.
Last week I witnessed something I have not seen in my 40 years walking picket lines across Canada. Never before have I seen a police force conduct itself with such disrespect for working peoples’ rights and disregard for their basic role as peace officers.
Regina’s Chief of Police ordered more than 70 police officers to intimidate, harass, and dismantle by force a lawful picket line and a peaceful assembly of hundreds of Unifor picketers and their supporters.
Employers that refuse to offer workers an hourly wage of at least $15 are sentencing their employees to poverty.
The Executive Director of the Employer’s Council of Newfoundland and Labrador, Richard Alexander, recently called a $15 an hour minimum wage an “extreme policy”.
