BCRC 2025 Western Regional Directors Recommendations

Western Regional Director Recommendation #1
Strengthening Health & Safety Through Training

I therefore recommend that the B.C. Regional Council:

Support Local Unions in conducting workplace safety audits, identifying gaps in training, equipment, and procedures, and advocating for improvements with employers and provincial safety boards.
Encourage Local Unions to assess the current state of health and safety training and education within their workplaces and commit to enhancing opportunities to raise awareness on health and safety within workplaces and within the membership.
Advocate for stronger provincial and federal safety standards, including improved worker benefits and prevention measures, to ensure that every worker returns home safe and well.
Encourage Local Health and Safety Committees to connect with the B.C. Regional Council Health and Safety Standing Committee to push their respective provincial safety boards for improved prevention measures, improved worker benefits, and improved health and safety standards.

I therefore recommend the B.C. Regional Council:

Fully participate in Unifor’s Protect Canadian Jobs campaign by encouraging all members to take the ‘Unifor Made’ pledge and identify the goods and services they provide to Canadians so the National Union can promote widely.
Advocate for all levels of government to use a range of strong and strategic countermeasures, including retaliatory tariffs, to defend workplaces, eliminate incentives for business to relocate out of Canada, and penalize firms should they choose to do so.
Coordinate discussions among local unions, industry councils, and with government officials and key stakeholders to promote Unifor’s call for big, bold economy-building ideas in the face of U.S. aggression, and to consider other sector-specific ideas as part of comprehensive industrial strategies that deliver a more self-sustaining, inclusive and resilient economy for all.
Commit to closely monitoring tariff-related workplace impacts in every regional Unifor-represented workplace, share that information with the National Union and prepare to respond, by any means necessary, to prevent the relocation of production or permanent loss of jobs.
Support calls to action by helping locals mobilize members to protect and defend Canada jobs at all opportunities.

Therefore, I recommend that Unifor BC Regional Council:

Continue to push the provincial government to act on its own campaign promise to review private transit as soon as possible and to push to bring the voices of workers and these strikes into any review that is called. The review must assess wage/benefit parity or gaps, strike frequency/duration, service reliability, Handy DART outcomes, and total alleged “value for money” once contractor profit is included compared to the costs of any disruption and less service to communities.
Continue to demand a vision for public transit in British Columbia for the province and call for long-term stable funding plans to increase service and inter-community service, accelerate current plans, and end the continued reliance on private contractors.
Begin lobbying community leaders where private transit is in use to submit resolutions to the Union of BC Municipalities demanding change and action on the use of private contractors.
Call for a moratorium on any new or renewed contracting out of public transit and demand phased-in public delivery with clear timelines, workforce protections, and successorship language.

I therefore recommend that Unifor B.C. Regional Council:

Continue to push all relevant Ministers in the federal government, and the B.C. government to coordinate a “Team Canada” strategy to support the forestry sector and its workers, beginning with immediate income supports for those facing curtailments and layoffs, and emergency financial assistance to keep mills operating through the tariff crisis.
Support the development of a national industrial strategy for forestry that reduces Canada’s historic dependence on exports, prioritizes domestic processing and value-added production, continued follow-through campaigning for a Made-in-Canada housing policy strategy to leverage Canadian wood to develop affordable wood-based housing and component construction; and
Commit to continue defending and grow our forestry sector by working in solidarity with Indigenous partners, industry stakeholders, and governments at all levels to ensure a more sustainable, innovative, and inclusive future—one that puts Canadian wood to work for Canadians and ends our vulnerability to foreign economic aggression.

I therefore recommend the B.C. Regional Council:

Continue to protect our members from the stigma surrounding mental health issues by ensuring that our members have confidential access and referrals to Employee and Family Assistance programs and benefits.
Continue to reduce the stigma surrounding mental health by negotiating mental health recognition, protection, and benefits into all collective agreements.
Continue to support and engage with community partners to offer accessible resources to combat the barriers of mental health.
Continue putting education first by providing mental health training whenever possible to keep conversations progressing on breaking down the barriers surrounding mental health and ensuring that mental health at work is also a health and safety issue.
Continue to provide a platform for members to share their lived experiences, successes, and recovery.
Continue to hold political leaders at all levels accountable for more action and resources to help defeat the stigma surrounding mental health as it affects one in three British Columbians at some point in their lives.

To support this campaign, I therefore recommend that:

The BC Regional Council support and participate in the national campaign “Reproductive Justice Now” to support reproductive rights.
All Local unions support their Women’s Committees and any members who wish to participate in actions targeting provincial and federal governments to broaden access and ensure the Canada Health Act is enforced.
All Local unions encourage their members to sign onto the Reproductive Justice Now campaign at https://www.unifor.org/campaigns/all-campaigns/reproductive-justice-now. Reproductive rights are fragile, and we must work together to protect and expand access to sexual and reproductive health care.