Retiree Report June 2019

retiree report

Retiree Chairperson’s Report – June 2019

This will be the last meeting for our Retirees Chapter before our break of July and August. The next meeting will be on September 18th, 2019 at 1:00 p.m. So, I hope everyone will have a great summer.

It seems that every day we witness the Doug Ford government cutting more of our health care, public education and social welfare systems affecting the poor most of all. We need to phone our MPP’s until their phones ring off the hooks and otherwise make a lot of noise in response.

The word is that the Ontario government’s cabinet is in for shuffle in wake of discouraging public opinion polls for the Tories that show how much the people of Ontario are turning against them. One poll showed that three out of ten people who voted for Ford and the Tories now disapproves of the Ford government. In view of this, I feel that we as a union, and we as voters must not stop hammering the Ford Government and drive their poll numbers even lower.
This fall of this year is going to be busy especially with a Federal election scheduled for October. We must work to make sure the Tories do not take power federally. We cannot afford to have the kind of government we have in Ontario gain power in Ottawa.

Also, this fall we will see the outcome of the UAW’s negotiations with GM, Ford and Chrysler in the U.S. and this will give us an idea of what to expect next year when auto negotiations take place in Canada, particularly following the devastating jobs losses which are about to take place in Oshawa. I cannot see GM being Unifor’s strike target next year given this. My best guess is that the target will likely be the Ford Motor Company where the workforce is doing well and where the contract concessions of recent years have not been as deep. Time will tell.

See you in September!

 

Fred Dougan
Chairperson, Retiree Chapter, Unifor Local 199