CHAIRPERSON’S REPORT MARCH 18, 2020
The protest in Niagara Falls against the Ford Government went well considering how cold it was that day. There were more than 5,000 protesters in attendance. The Doug Ford government got a very clear message from us that the people of Ontario are not happy with the things his government are doing to working people. We need to build on that action and keep the heat on. We can’t sit back and let him continue with his policies. Thanks to those who took part.
I was in Toronto from March 4th to 6th of 2020 for a meeting of the Unifor Retired Workers Council Executive. We made some by-law changes concerning how the Retired Workers Council Executive will be restructured in time for its election in 2022. The new executive will reflect each area of Canada. That will give retired workers equal representation across the country.
These changes are still in need of additional work and this will happen at the next meeting of the Retired Workers Council Executive Board. We will see how it works out down the road.
We, on the Unifor Local 199 Retired Workers Chapter Executive Board are looking at ways to make improvements to the Retirees Centre in the future, in order to make things better for all the retirees in our chapter and for our retiree volunteers.
Finally, it should be noted that calls are growing in the U.S. for the federal government to take over the UAW as more and more of its top leaders are either charged or implicated in the UAW’s deepening corruption scandal. It is a sad day when things get to the point where government intervention is seen as the way to solve a union corruption scandal. The UAW membership, not the likes of Donald Trump, should be the ones to tackle this situation and make things right.
The retiree centre is closed until April 6th, this decision was made to prevent the spread of COVID -19. We will review the opening date the first week of April.
Fred Dougan
Retiree Chairperson