Despite a court order and hefty fines, Unifor will be continuing a work stoppage at the Nemak Plant in Windsor.
On Friday, Superior Court Justice Terrence Patterson found Unifor President Jerry Dias, Local 200 President John D’Agnolo, local Vice-President Tim Little and Nemak plant chairman Mike Jobin in contempt of court, after the union defied a previous order upholding the Ontario Labour Relations Board’s (OLRB) ruling to end the blockade and resume production at the Nemak plant. Unifor had until 12:01 a.m. Sunday to remove the blockade and assure that everything was set for production to resume at the factory late Sunday night.
Union members had been barricading the plant since Labour Day in an effort to force Nemak to agree to the terms of a collective bargaining agreement, in which Nemak agreed to keep the plant open through at least 2022 in exchange for across-the-board wage concessions.
Nemak announced earlier this summer they were closing the plant next year. Patterson suggested in court that he was not in a position to rule on the content of the collective bargaining agreement between the company and the union. The justice said the blockade was the equivalent of an illegal strike.
However, Unifor is not budging for now and has presented Nemak with three demands they want to be met before workers return to the job. According to National Unifor Representative Chris Taylor, on Saturday night they issued a proposal to Nemak officials.
"We told the company that we would be willing to take down the blockade and tell our members to return to work if they met some conditions," Taylor explained. "A lot of the conditions that we're talking about are things that went through the court system."
Unifor is requesting that union representatives meet with Nemak representatives three times in a two week period to try and reach a negotiated resolution to the dispute. Taylor said they are looking for some face to face time after previous attempts were unsuccessful.
"It was our union who reached out to them. Unfortunately we not able to come to a resolve. I'm going to say that's because they weren't willing to put in the time," he said. "So we want three dates, get us in a room and let's just sit down and try to hash it out."
The second demand is that Unifor and Nemak will establish an expedited arbitration process to provide a decision by no later than October 31, 2019. Unifor wants to be assured that Nemak will abide by the decision, even if that means they have to keep the plant open until January 2022.
"Nemak has to come out publically and in writing to say that they'll abide," Taylor explained. "Because we would have great concerns that if an arbitrator rules in our favour and says [Nemak] violated the collective agreement and the plant has to stay open, we don't know how that's going to look."
Lastly, Unifor is requesting that Nemak will not discipline any Unifor member for any issues relating to the labour dispute.
"The last thing we would stand for is that they return to work and start facing discipline for protecting their own jobs," said Taylor.
Unifor is giving Nemak a deadline of 9 a.m. Wednesday to agree to the terms. If Nemak comes to Unifor any time between then, Taylor said they will take down the blockade.
During Justice Patterson's ruling on Friday, Unifor was hit with a $75,000 fine directly. For every day that the blockade remains in place, Local 200 will face a $10,000 fine, along with $1,000-per-day fine each for Dias, D’Agnolo, Little and Jobin.
Taylor said he respects the decision from the court but believes the message Unifor is trying to send is bigger than that.
"We are well aware of the court orders that was handed down, inlcuding the fines," he said. But this isn't about a battle in the court. This is about protecting our jobs and stopping them from, being shipped across the border."
-With files from Mark Brown and Maureen Revait