Unifor national president-elect Lana Payne at the union’s national convention in Toronto on August 10. Christopher Katsarov/The Globe and Mail
Lana Payne, a former journalist who built her career in labor activism in the Atlantic provinces, was decisively elected as the new leader of Unifor, replacing embattled former union leader Jerry Dias, after a long and contested campaign.
She is the first woman to head Canada’s largest private sector union and has served as Unifor’s secretary-treasurer since 2019. In that role, she led Unifor through a public ethics crisis involving Mr. Diaz, for whom the union found he violated his constitution by claiming he received a $50,000 payment from a supplier of COVID-19 test kits in exchange for selling them to union members.
The election is the first contested since Unifor was founded in 2013 and took place at the union’s fourth convention in Toronto. Mr Diaz was elected president in 2013 and held the post until his sudden departure this year.
“Today we turn a page, today we will move forward. … We can build working class power in our union and across the country. We can be principled and smart in our battles and we will be,” she told a crowd of more than 1,000 delegates gathered for the vote, just minutes after she was announced the winner.
Unifor has approximately 315,000 members, including some Globe and Mail employees.
It was a tight race pitting Mr. Diaz’s former assistant Scott Doherty, himself a long-time unionist, against Ms. Payne. Mr. Diaz’s ethics scandal has hung over Unifor’s election, causing significant disunity on the national executive board and among local residents. Mr. Doherty’s supporters publicly accused Ms. Payne of intentionally releasing hundreds of pages of meeting minutes and a summary report of a third-party investigation into Mr. Diaz to benefit her campaign. They argued that this undermined the credibility of Unifor.
Ms Payne campaigned on a platform of transparency and accountability, promising more control over issues such as staffing costs and pledging to look closely at issues of culture and management within the union’s senior leadership. In a series of campaign speeches in the run-up to Wednesday’s vote, she stressed the need for a new union leadership to rule from the “bottom up, not the top down”.
Ms. Payne began working in the labor movement more than three decades ago, with the Newfoundland and Labrador Fish, Food and Allied Workers, who were part of the Canadian Auto Workers union. Before becoming Unifor’s Atlantic regional director, she was president of the Newfoundland and Labrador Federation of Labor and wrote a column for the province’s daily newspaper, The Telegram, for more than 20 years.
“She is a unifier. Confrontation is the last thing she wants,” noted Sid Ryan, a longtime union leader and former president of the Ontario Federation of Labor who worked closely with Ms. Payne during her time in Newfoundland. “She looks at the bigger picture. What is affecting workers right now and what pressure should we put on corporations and governments?’
Mr Doherty ran a campaign that drew heavily on his experience as a tough negotiator, telling delegates and members it was vital the union elected someone who had the best skills in negotiating for better working conditions in inflationary environment. But his credibility was tarnished by his own connection to the Diaz scandal, noted Larry Savage, a professor of labor studies at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ont.
Mr. Doherty was a close friend and longtime aide to Mr. Diaz. The third-party report, prepared by the law firm Turnpenney Milne, found that Mr Doherty had contacted Chris Macdonald, another long-time aide to Mr Diaz who had been a whistleblower throughout the affair, during the investigation. The report suggested that he pressured Mr McDonald to withdraw the complaint against Mr Diaz to the union. Mr Doherty has repeatedly denied this.
“I think Doherty’s campaign was ruined by the scandal,” Prof Savage said. “The union is in a much better position to turn the page on Jerry Diaz. If Doherty had won, it would have been an albatross around the union’s neck for much longer,” he added.
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Unifor held the leadership election as the Canadian economy faces a tight labor market, rising inflation and the possibility of a recession. At a press conference shortly after she was elected, Ms. Payne told reporters that Unifor’s priority was to work as hard as possible for workers at the bargaining table.
“There is an affordability crisis in this country. Inflation is sky high and we have a situation where central bankers are raising interest rates at rates not seen in decades. Workers don’t have to pay for all of this. They didn’t cause the problem.”
Voting began around 2:00 PM ET on Wednesday, with three candidates running — Ms. Payne, Mr. Dougherty and Unifor Local 444 head Dave Cassidy.
Unifor’s constitution dictates that the winning candidate must receive a majority of the votes cast. In the first round of voting, Ms Payne secured 46 per cent of the vote, Mr Doherty 36 per cent and Mr Cassidy 18 per cent.
Ms Payne was then elected National President in the second round of voting with 61 per cent of the vote. Ms Payne’s campaign backers – Len Poirier and Daniel Cloutier – were elected secretary-treasurer and director of Quebec, respectively.
“The delegates made it clear that reaffirming and strengthening Unifor’s commitment to accountability and transparency is a top priority after the events of the past few months,” said Jim Stanford, director of the Vancouver-based Center for the Future of Work and former director of policy for the Canadian Auto Workers. .
Dr Stanford added that with the leadership race “settled”, the way was clear for Unifor to recommit to good governance practices.
Tony Lea, a former General Motors employee and president of Unifor Local 222 in Oshawa, Ont., told The Globe he hopes Ms. Payne’s administration will be open to thinking deeply about the issues facing the union. and how to resolve them. “It’s not just the Diaz scandal. At issue are Unifor’s relationship with the Canadian Labor Congress, retiree pensions, wages and other issues. There is a lot to do going forward.”
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