Women

This year we mark Women’s History Month in Canada with the knowledge that gains toward equality are fragile and need vigilance to continually protect and enshrine them into the fabric of our union and country.

As we reach back into our past to share the stories of women who have been trailblazers, we learn important lessons from their struggles and triumphs that we need to continually remind ourselves of today.

Three women working at the University of Windsor – all Unifor members – will receive back pay in the range of $25,000 to $35,000 each from their employer, after the union filed a complaint with the province’s Pay Equity Review Services.

Unifor has become a signatory to the Reproductive Justice Manifesto, coordinated by the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada, the AccessBC Campaign for free prescription contraception, the BC Humanist Association, Options for Sexual Health, and the University of British Columbia Social Justice Centre.

Today’s U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) decision to overturn Roe v. Wade will cause harm, medical risk, and preventable death for American women and trans people, and embolden organizations who want the same for us in Canada. 

Safe, accessible reproductive care should never be up for debate, let alone criminalised or limited for those who need it.

Reports the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) is about to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that protects a woman’s bodily autonomy in choosing to have a safe abortion, have sent a shockwave around the world.

Our collective grasp on women’s rights is frail, even, clearly, in countries that view themselves as world leaders. Generations of women have had to fight against the systematic and purposeful erosion of the ability to exercise our freedom of choice. There is perhaps no greater symbol of lost ground on our basic freedoms than the impending defeat of Roe v. Wade.

In an Online Event on March 8, 2022, women members of Unifor from across Canada gathered virtually to celebrate the union’s work toward equality over the past year.

“Today we celebrate the activists, the agitators, the negotiators, the believers, the challengers, the leaders – because together, we are unstoppable,” said Lana Payne, National Secretary-Treasurer in her welcoming address to the nearly 200 participants.

International Women’s Day 2022 is an opportunity for working-class women to celebrate and reflect on our accomplishments as well as gather strength for the fights that lay ahead. 

For more than 100 years, women in the labour movement across the globe have marked March 8 by celebrating collective achievements and recommitting to the fight for gender equality.