Retiree Chairperson’s Report – February 2019
Well, the groundhog has seen its shadow. So I am looking forward to early Spring.
Things are going good with our Retirees Centre and with the local union as well. There will be elections for the Executive Board and positions in the GM Unit on March 20th, 2019. If runoff elections are necessary, they will take place in April and we will be able to vote on April 17th, 2019, on the same days as the Retired Workers Chapter meeting. I would like to wish all of the candidates well in these elections.
The Unifor National Retirees leadership will meet with the Federal Government about getting Pharmacare for the people of Canada. I am happy to see that the Unifor Retirees leadership are keeping up the pressure on the Federal Government concerning Pharmacare. If Pharmacare is achieved in the future, it will make life a lot better for our Unifor Retirees in terms of getting the drugs we need.
Former Stelpipe employees and Unifor Local 523 members have received good news. There is a Pension Plan Surplus and distribution is likely to occur. Unifor Local 199 will be dealing with this in the near future in order to set up this distribution. So, stay tuned. We have former Local 523 retirees taking part in Local 199 Retired Workers Chapter meetings every month. This may help us to grow the number of former Local 523 retirees at our monthly Retired Workers Chapter meetings.
Finally, we will be meeting with Shane Wark, who is an assistant to Gerry Dias. This meeting will take place at the end of March 2019. The focus of the meeting will be on getting the COLA back in the pension in the 2020 contract. At this meeting, there will be Ford, Chrysler and GM Retired Workers Chapter Chairpersons in attendance. We, as retirees, want to get our pension COLA back. This meeting is a start, driving the union forward towards the 2020 contract. We know it will take a lot of work to achieve this so we are starting work on it now. Just take a look at the profits these auto companies have made from 2016 to the present. They wanted us to help them out in 2008 and 2009. Now they are back on their feet. It is time for them to pay back the retirees in all three companies meaning Ford, Chrysler and GM.
Fred Dougan
Chairperson, Retiree Chapter, Unifor Local 199