Greetings Sisters and Brothers of Unifor Local 707’s Leadec section. The work that has been done on behalf of our members in keeping the plant clean and free of the Covid-19 pandemic for the past 10 months has not gone unnoticed by all members from all 3 of our bargaining units.
This week we find our Leadec members on a rare layoff week within the plant with the limited amount of people working inside the facility. Skilled Trades members are on layoff, production workers are on layoff and now we see the majority of our Leadec members on layoff as well.
The layoff was announced late last week on Thursday and the company (Leadec) gave notice to our members immediately. There is a total of 19 members within the facility right now working on Shift 1 and 2.
There was a mad rush on Friday night which Brothers Hassan and Millar worked very late into the evening to make sure that the canvas was done correctly. There was an overtime opportunity for Sunday that needed addressed immediately so as not to affect upcoming Employment Insurance claims, we had to fight on your behalf. Different arrangements were made where some took Vacation for 40 hours and some took S.P.A time instead so as to not have to put in a waiting period for E.I. . Other members elected to not utilize their vacation and either resumed their E.I claim from last year or in certain instances were forced to put in a one week waiting period for a new claim.
A very late night was put in with Hassan and Millar dealing with a variety of upper management at Leadec to ensure it was fixed ahead of time and we want to thank the company for correcting something that could have gone terribly for a lot of our members. The Union’s position was that no member should be disadvantaged due to accepting an overtime opportunity during a proposed layoff week. This may seem simple however when it came time to correct what had already begun, we had to go the extra mile to make sure our members were all safe from losing a weeks pay. We hope that it was corrected without a hitch.
Please ensure if you are on layoff that you file your Employment Insurance properly as it will be like every other EI claim and need to be filled out at the end of a 2 week period.
To the Stewards on all 3 shifts, we want to thank you for working diligently on behalf of all of our members during the past 10 months during some very different times that we have never seen before.
Although we have not been able to meet in a formal meeting during Covid-19, we are about to engage in negotiations this year to establish a new collective agreement between our Leadec members and Leadec (the employer). Start thinking of amendments that you want brought forth to bargaining for our new agreement. The Stewards, Chairperson or Vice-President will all keep you informed as to when we will try to do an amendment meeting.
We would like to get an online meeting done with the leadership and members of this bargaining unit as we only have approx 160 members and it is within the numbers we have available to us on our online portal. That said, PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU SIGN UP FOR OUR EMAIL and PORTAL through the sign up at the top right of this page.
Fuad Hassan *************************** 
Dave Millar
Chairperson ******************************************** Vice President
Unifor Local 707 ***************************************Unifor Local 707
