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2023 Automotive Insights Symposium Day 2 Fireside Chat With Lana Payne Transcript

KRISTIN DZICZEK: I am super excited about our first guest. I have a long interest in following what the organized labor and the auto industry does, and how it plays a role in the future of our industry. And it's been a few tumultuous years for organized labor, as they've been sorting out some scandals, sorting out some big changes in the industry about what jobs are, where those jobs are, even all the way through the supply chain. Because we're adding batteries and motors and e-trans axles, we're also losing exhaust pipes and fuel pumps and other things in the supply chain, which is also impacting unionized labor.

So it's a really critical year. And I'm super fortunate to have the new president of Unifor, who was just elected in August 2022, to talk with us about what she sees going forward into this year's negotiations. So she is here with us virtually. So that's why I'm on screen with Lana Payne here.

And Lana, she's going to give us a few introductory remarks. And then we'll get into the discussion. Please join us on Pigeonhole, and give us your questions as well. Welcome, Lana.

LANA PAYNE: Great. Thank you, Kristin. It really is an honor to be here with all of you. And good morning to everyone. I hope you've all had your coffee already, or at least you're on coffee number three.

It's a pleasure, obviously, to be speaking with you, even if it is virtually from here in Toronto, and especially considering I think also how critical I've been of monetary policy by central bankers lately, particularly in what's been happening in Canada. So it was great to get this invitation. And I really appreciate all the effort that folks like Rick and Leslie and you yourself and others have put in to make this work, given the kind of scheduling challenges that I have had this month.

Let me start by saying, it's an honor to have this space with you today. And I consider it a privilege to get to chat with such a distinguished group of industry observers, business representatives, and officials on a topic that is of such importance to our union and our members. I'm told today that my appearance might be a first for a Canadian labor leader. So I'd say this is a double honor, so thank you very much for that.

And of course, as a proud Canadian and unapologetic proud New Foundlander, I would say, what took you so long? You know that we're a friendly bunch up here and quite accessible, well, most of the time. And I might add that we make some pretty damn fine cars and parts in our country.

In all seriousness, though, I'm really glad to have the opportunity to share some thoughts and perspectives ahead of what will be the most significant year for North American auto workers within this historic shift towards vehicle electrification. I was elected Unifor president on August 10th of last year at our Union's Constitutional Convention. And in less than 24 hours, on August 11th, I was formally launching to the world Unifor's new auto industry policy called Navigating the Road Ahead.

It was a heck of a first day on the job, let me tell you. And it shows just how central the auto industry is, not just for tens of thousands of Unifor members in the sector but for hundreds of thousands of workers up and down the value chain in Canada, and millions throughout, of course, North America. Our strategy contains 29 specific recommendations developed by rank-and-file leadership and staff.

Each recommendation, though, serves as an important, I would say, piece of a large and complex puzzle to ensure that Canada's economic, climate, trade, and labor policies work in sync to maximize the benefits of this EV transition for workers. The scale of this industrial transformation doesn't happen often. We all know this.

And we also that the stakes are very, very high. The job implications of building vehicles with fewer moving parts, as Kristin has just pointed out in her opening, is not lost on us as a union. Our own internal analysis shows that nearly one third of our membership in the independent parts supply sector are vulnerable to the shift to EVs. That's thousands of workers building parts that are simply non-transferable to electric vehicles.

What happens to those good union jobs? What happens to those critical skills? This is a real challenge for all of us. And our policy document presents some possible solutions on this front.

At the same time, we look at the shift towards zero-emission vehicles as part of an inevitable evolution. We see the opportunities the shift presents to secure new work in our plants, new tools and skills in the hands of workers, new openings for regional economic development and innovation. We also see this as a necessary shift to tackle greenhouse gas emissions in transportation, a key contributor, as we all know, to climate change, the most pressing existential threat of our generation.

I don't think I need to oversell this any more than I am. But I do want to ante up a little further. I'm going to suggest that more at stake in this transition than the auto industry itself, as important as that is, how this shift is managed and executed will have broader political and economic ramifications for tens of millions of workers in other climate-affected industries.

In many respects, the auto sector is the first major industrial sector to undertake a mass-scale green transition. It will serve as a testing ground and will happen under a microscope. In other words, everyone is watching, so no pressure.

As a union, we're focused on how workers will fare in the shift to a clean economy. What will these jobs look like? Will they build communities, raise living standards, and benefit from unionization?

Or will they be plagued by precarity, low wages, and limited benefits? These are some of the outstanding questions on the minds of millions of workers, including Unifor members. Suffice it to say, we must get this transition right.

Now prior to serving as national president, I held the office of secretary treasurer for Unifor. And in that capacity, I had the privilege of participating on the Unifor Master Bargaining Committee during 2020 contract talks with the Detroit Three. The bargaining round proved a watershed moment for Canada's auto industry.

We entered talks without as much as a single dime allocated to future EV assembly investment in our country, and lingering fears that Canada would be an afterthought in the global shift to electrification. By the time we had completed negotiations over 2020 and 2021, our union helped secure $4.3 billion in new EV-related investment, breathing new life in assembly plants in Oakville, Windsor, and Ingersoll, with commitments made to Brampton in 2022. And along the way, we successfully negotiated the restart of vehicle reproduction-- of vehicle production in Oshawa, a victory most thought completely impossible. This represented over $1 billion in investment as well.

What you might not know is with the new jobs, this is now a factory with a workforce that is now 50% women, something also thought impossible not that long ago. Those 2020 and 2021 negotiations inspired what's been perhaps the most impressive series of auto investments that we've seen in Canada in generations. At last count, we were nearing $20 billion, in Canadian dollars, of course, from assembly programs to battery components to precursor materials to critical minerals.

According to our friends at the Center for Automotive Research, all of this represents about 15% of total EV investment across the continent, a shade above our share of the North American sales market. This is important since EV investments have significantly outpaced investments in gas-powered vehicles for the past three years, with no signs of relenting. This is a key message we relay to skeptics, who would rather wait and see whether EV production takes shape or proves to be a passing fad.

We see this as a once-in-a-century transformation. Yes, from a workforce perspective, there are many risks. But the biggest risk, in my opinion, would be for our union to refuse to change, to roll the dice and watch our domestic industry die on the vine.

The strong ratification results we received in 2020 shows that this isn't a risk that our members are willing to take. It's not a risk governments are willing to take, either. I will tell you that what's most impressed me is the full commitment and coordination we've seen between the federal and provincial governments making the case for new investment in Canada.

It's one of those very, very rare occasions where collaboration transcends partisan politics, a federal liberal government working with a provincial conservative government. In your world, it would be Democrats and Republicans working together. I know, a shocking prospect, but it's been happening here, and with all an eye to growing this vital industry. These are truly remarkable times.

As many of you know, the next cycle of collective bargaining takes place this year. And it's not just for Unifor members in Canada but for members of the UAW as well. For those not following the bargaining cycles as closely as we do, this will mark the first time our two unions will be bargaining concurrently since 1999. Of course, I'm not including the extraordinary off-cycle bargaining that took place in 2009 on the heels of the global financial crisis.

Without a doubt, you'll be hearing a lot about jobs, about job quality, about income security, and the EV transition over the coming months, and perhaps a lot about investment, too. Bargaining has a tendency to put these critical worker issues in the public spotlight. Our internal processes and bargaining prep will continue to work itself through over the coming months. But it's fair to say that we do see this year's talks as a sort of waystation on the path to electrification.

2023 is the next stop on the road to implementing new EV architecture at many of our Canadian facilities. Bargaining provides an opportunity, as we all know, to ensure our collective agreements are equipped to support workers through this transition period, from workforce retention to income security, as I've said, and to skills readiness. And, yes, despite economic storm clouds looming, largely manufactured by central bankers, I might add, we'll be bargaining against the backdrop of a very tight labor market, with a high demand for skills. This puts workers very much in the driver's seat, and my team and I are really looking forward to getting talks underway.

Let me close these initial remarks by recognizing that the auto sector is at a certain inflection point right now. The decisions made today-- to be clear, the decisions made today on matters of product allocation, consumer adoption, and skills will define what success looks like from decades from now. How we define job quality and promote collective bargaining as a social good will, in turn, present our vision for what a truly just transition can and should be. We have to get this right. And as I've said, everyone is watching.

Last month, I had a wonderful opportunity to attend the official start of production of the new BrightDrop Zevo delivery vans at the GM CAMI plant in Ingersoll, the first operational and fully electric assembly plant in Canadian history. I can tell you, I was so proud to stand there, along with our Local 88 members, who are so committed to this project and excited to see it succeed, a group of workers who had the opportunity to discuss, debate, and ultimately vote to accept this transition plan in the course of their bargaining. The ownership they've taken in this project fuels the pride in the work that they will do. It's inspiring.

CAMI, like I imagine Factory ZERO in Detroit, will quickly become a case study on this transition. And there are lessons that we can take from these early experiences to shape our responses moving forward. There's an undeniable anxiety, though, and we must understand this, that afflicts workers during these periods. Communication strategies by all of us that are clear, honest, and consistent will be critical in the path forward.

It's also important that we do not disregard the challenges that transitions bring. Just so you know, more than 750 Unifor members working in the supply base around the Ingersoll facility lost their jobs as a result of the shift to EV delivery vans. This is a fact. And it's important we understand it and cross-examine it.

What is key here is that we are building stronger public support systems and skills pathways to help transition workers. Just as important is the need to localize supply chains, so we are bringing more of this critical EV work to impacted workplaces and communities. The more that workers, families, and communities feel the direct impacts of this shift, or the direct benefits, I should say, of this shift, the stronger political and person bonds will form. In other words, the more buy-in there will be for the transition in auto but in other sectors, too.

These are, what I would say, extraordinary times. They're also hopeful and exciting times. And I'm really glad to be here with all of you for this hour. And I look forward to your questions and to my chat with Kristin. Thank you very much.

[APPLAUSE]

KRISTIN DZICZEK: Thank you, Lana. It is such a pleasure to have you here. And I want to start off-- I mean, it's-- we have the first woman to lead a car company here in Detroit with Mary Barra. You're the first woman to lead Unifor. And UAW hasn't had a female leader either.

You were just elected last August. Can you tell us a little bit about your campaign and your mandate and your priorities as the first woman leader of Unifor?

LANA PAYNE: Yes, thanks. Well, I can say that I'm really, really proud to have been elected, especially given that this will be our 10th year as a union. We created Unifor in 2013, and we're going to celebrate all that we've accomplished with our members this year.

And as with all elections, the alternative would not have nearly been as amazing, for me particularly. So it is really great and a great honor to be in this important role representing working people, by the way, from coast to coast in our country and I think 20-plus economic sectors in all regions of Canada. It's an incredible honor and a great responsibility.

Throughout the campaign, I talked to hundreds, thousands of our members and our locals about some of their priorities. And so their priorities were incorporated in what I see that we should be doing as a union going into the future. And I can say that some of those things were obviously modernizing our union, making sure that we're improving in areas of democracy and accountability and transparency.

I think this is true of all institutions today, that we have to have a particular focus in those areas. There are any number of issues of concern, particularly around equity issues and the need to make sure that everybody is benefiting from the economy and that all workers are being lifted up. This was raised by many, many of our members.

I think it's important, too, to realize that I was being elected during what is still a global pandemic. And it's important to reflect on how the pandemic has really changed everything, including how unions must respond to the needs of our members.

But also, there's been an incredible redefining of work. And workers are feeling valued about what it is that they do, which I think is incredibly important, given the fact that prior to the pandemic, there were many, many people, many workers in our society who were invisible. And yet all of a sudden we depended on them for the very basics of life. And so this renewed value in what it is that workers do day in and day out to make our world work and to make our society function has in turn, I believe, empowered working people.

So it's quite an exciting time to be president of Unifor, given that, the new sense of the value of work that working people feel. But also, we are facing challenging times as a world, as an economy, and for our planet. So the responsibility is great, and I do feel that every day. But I also, I love to do this work with our members. And I look forward to being able to do some world changing over the next three years.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: Great, thank you. So some of our audience may not know this history. I am old enough to remember some of this happening at the time that it did. And not only that, I assign many reporters who cover union talks to go back and watch a really-- a critical film called Final Offer--

LANA PAYNE: Yes.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: --which you can get on the National Film Board of Canada, nfb.ca. You will never see this level of insight into how union bargaining works. But this is an old, old film that happened.

And I even-- I spoke to the filmmaker a few years ago because I'm like, how on Earth did you get this access? His name is Sturla Gunnarsson. He's an Icelandic filmmaker.

And he was capturing the deindustrialization of the United States and Canada in the early '80s. And he says, well, what better lens than through bargaining? And so he starts filming bargaining in Canada at Oshawa. And it was a year of an incredible long and tumultuous strike, and also the year that the vice president of the UAW's Canada division, Bob White, decided to break away from the UAW.

So Unifor, CAW, was once part of the UAW. Can you give us a little bit of the lesson about what happened? What did Bob White and Sam Gindin do and some of the reasons that led to that split?

LANA PAYNE: I'm sure there's lots of stories there that have even still yet to be told, Kristin.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: Oh, Sam wrote the book.

LANA PAYNE: Yes. He probably didn't put everything in there. I-- well, first of all, of course, I think it's interesting to speak of Unifor in the context of how broad we are.

Before I get to that, I mean, we are-- yes, part of our union is the CAW. And part of our union, of course, is the Communication Energy and Paper Workers Union. And this was the coming together of the creation of Unifor in 2013. And those two great Canadian unions had 90 other organizations over many, many decades to form what became Unifor today.

I think we all know that in the early 1980s, this was a really interesting economic period, as you pointed out. In Canada, we were going through government control, wage controls. Inflation was extremely high.

There was a lot of uncertainty. We were entering a period of trade agreements that we had not seen before and, as you say, the deindustrialization. It was pretty scary times for workers.

And in the backdrop to that, because Unifor auto workers at that point had been members of the UAW for about 50 years, we were facing some serious challenges in the auto sector, not the least of which is what was occurring at Chrysler at the time, which was the company was basically facing financial collapse and needed support. And then there became what I call a real tangly discussion. I am from Newfoundland. I use that word a lot.

But real strong philosophical differences and around what that bargaining should look like heading into bargaining after the Chrysler situation with GM and Ford. And from the UAW's perspective, their American leadership at that point, it was around issues like taking lump-sum payments, profit-sharing. And there was a real what I would say opposition to do that and to do that kind of bargaining in Canada.

And so we ended up with some pretty heated discussions within the union, and then refusing, basically, to take that kind of approach to bargaining in Canada, which eventually led to the UAW leadership basically saying that if we ended up in a labor dispute that they would not provide strike assistance or strike support. And that really led then to what was the breakaway of 1985, so a very storied history, which created some wonderful worker power here in Canada as a result.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: Well, and it continues to this day. Canadian auto workers do not have profit-sharing. They've continued to get annual wage increases in years when the UAW did not. So it's been a very divergent path in unionization.

What do you-- I want to go to a question about how connected the two unions are. So I am a girl from Flint. I buy union-made cars. My most recent one is a US-built car, but the one before was made in CAMI, the one my son is driving.

LANA PAYNE: Mine, too.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: So you're so connected. And have-- this industry is so connected, but especially between the US and Canada. And you encourage your members to purchase these unionized vehicles made on the other side of the border. But there's some really big differences in the policies in the US and Canadian economies, as well as these differences between the UAW and Unifor agreements, which we touched on a little bit. Can you talk about some of those main differences that you see?

LANA PAYNE: Yeah, well, I think first from the economic point of view, obviously, our economy is a lot smaller. I think if we look at scale, you're 10 to 1 to us. So that is kind of huge.

And as with our approach to industrial development in Canada, particularly in the auto industry, policies that are made in the United States do have an impact here. And we have to be aware of that. I think about 90% of what we produce in Canada ends up in the United States. So there is a significant what I would call connection between us.

And we have to be aware of what laws are being passed in the United States that may-- or regulations, obviously, that may impact the auto sector because it could spill over, and often does spill over in terms of having an impact on the Canadian sector as well.

This was why there was quite a lot of concern, for example, in a recent example, when there was a talk about US assembly requirements under a new EV tax credit. You may recall this. We had a bit of concern because we knew that this would impact Canadian jobs, making vehicles in Canada a lot more expensive. But also, it would impact US jobs.

There is-- it's hard to tell anymore when these cars are being assembled how much of it is coming from Canada and how much of it is coming from the US. If you look at our Windsor plant as an example, the Pacifica, I think we have the engines come from Michigan and transmissions from Indiana. So there's really a lot of crossover in terms of what goes into these vehicles. And we knew that this would be-- would have an impact. And I think the resolve that came out of that, which was to have a North American look at this, was really novel, but also, I think, bodes well for the sector going forward. And it was a good result for Canada as well.

When we were thinking about the differences, I would say, between collective agreements between us, for example, and the UAW, there are a number of differences. Some of them we've already highlighted here, Kristin. We don't have profit-sharing in our agreements.

We've focused more on the things that we can guarantee workers. We try not to leave things up to the whims of markets. And as a result, it's about trying to improve, as you mentioned, base wages and other elements of compensation directly in the collective agreement.

A second point I would say is we really put a focus on keeping COLA in our agreements. Even during the difficult period of the 2009 global financial crisis, we made sure that that language was secured in our agreements. And we made a slight improvement in 2020 bargaining.

But it's nowhere near where it traditionally was. But I can guarantee you that this is probably going to be a hot topic in bargaining this year. How do we make sure that these are robust cost-of-living clauses?

And I think the third kind of area that I would say makes a big difference between UAW and us is around health care and health spending. Health spending is a big and expensive item in UAW bargaining, whereas in Canada we have a public universal health program, Medicare for all. And that certainly reduces what it is that we need to bargain at the bargaining table around health care and really gives, I think, our facilities and our bargaining a bit of a competitive edge in our country.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: So I'm going to switch to a question from the audience, which is on my mind, too, as long as we're on the differences between your unions. Was your election-- this is from Bob Chiarelli-- "Was your election based on the vote of delegates or a direct one-member, one-vote approach, as the UAW now has as a result of their federal monitor and the referendum on one member, one vote?" And then the second part of his question is, "How do you think the UAW shift to direct voting will change the direction of the union?"

LANA PAYNE: Well, I-- in Canada, we still have a delegated convention. There were close to, I think, 2,500 or 3,000 delegates that would have participated, representing every single local in Unifor over 650 locals. And I'm honored to have received their support.

And the way it works is these are often, as well, people who are elected in their locals to come to our constitutional convention to elect the national leadership. And it is different than the one-member, one-vote that he's referred to. In terms of how it will change things, I can't speak for the UAW.

I will say to you that we did have a resolution to our delegates on the floor speaking to change to a one-member, one-vote. It was turned down by over 80% by Unifor leaders from all across the country. So right now, that is the system that we have.

And it-- I think there are pros and cons to both is what I would say. Some of our unions-- some of our local unions obviously have one-member, one-vote as systems as well in their bylaws. So Unifor folks are elected in a variety of ways.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: So thank you for that. So let's-- we've talked about some of the differences. What about some of the similarities between the two unions? I mean, one similarity is I believe the UAW still has a local in Canada so that they can call themselves the International United Auto Workers. So they still represent some Canadian workers, just one local. But what are some other similarities?

LANA PAYNE: I think we face a lot of similar challenges, Kristin. As unions representing workers in the auto sector, we face a number of things right now, and have historically faced them. How do we secure investments so that we're protecting job security for our members?

Pensions is a critical issue that we both face. We're in the same boat when it comes to this. We've not made pension improvements in more than 15 years, which is probably a little precursor or a hint that this is going to be something that we'll be looking at in bargaining this year, the same way that we did in 2020.

Retention is another issue that I would say is of critical importance, both for the UAW and for us. We all know that we're experiencing a really changing labor market. This was to be predicted, given where we were going to be with demographics in both our countries.

The pandemic changed and hastened that a little bit. But there's no doubt that the demand to retain and attract skills and workers is going to be critical. And in my opinion, the better the strong collective agreements that you have are really going to make a difference and will give employers a competitive edge, in my opinion, in terms of attracting workers to their workplaces.

Affordability, I would say, is another issue that's top of mind for all workers right now. We're seeing this at every single collective bargaining table. It's not going to be any different in auto bargaining this year for any of us. Our inflation rate in Canada is about 6.8% last year, I think 7.1% for you in the United States. So obviously, affordability and purchasing power for workers is going to be a critical point of discussion.

And I would-- to be frank, obviously, the internal crises that both unions have had to face obviously is something that we have a bit in common around. For us as a union, we have made clear accountability commitments to our members, including a task force that's currently working on improving accountability and transparency within Unifor. We're also talking about creating the position of an integrity officer as a result of that. And we're working very closely in a renewed fashion with local unions to really make sure that we're meeting their needs across the country.

So it's really interesting economic times. And some things will be unique to the auto industry. But some of these bigger macro issues all workers are facing at the moment.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: Well, and I will note the scandal to which you refer in Canada was the president resigned early after an investigation was initiated. And I believe you were part of that. So it was not quite what we saw on this side of the border, with federal investigations and prison terms and things like that, but still a pretty-- a shocking change, I think, at the head of your union, so just for context.

LANA PAYNE: Yes, it was a constitutional breach involving our code of ethics, which is why we've gone through the process now of making sure that we're working with our members to improve all processes of our union, and making sure that they're part of that.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: So in past rounds of negotiations, you have been off cycle with the UAW. So it's hard to tell who goes first because maybe you go first, and then they go a few years later. But what it seems like is UAW will negotiate in 2019. Unifor for most of the sector goes in 2020. And then the CAMI plant goes in 2021 because it's on a separate agreement.

So this is the-- Mike Wayland's question here. "The UAW and Unifor are negotiating with most of the D3 for the first time in a long time. Is this a positive for your union? And what will be some of the greatest challenges?"

LANA PAYNE: Yeah, I think, obviously, it's important from a number of perspectives. I think it's good for us to be getting at this in the period that we're in. Particularly with the transition, going for another year for us would have been very challenging when you're looking at the timing of when our plants are going to be retooled and the kinds of issues that we have to deal with in this round of bargaining around making sure hopefully that we're improving the income supports around that, shortening, and having a say around shortening, hopefully, retooling periods.

So for us, strategically, it made sense to try and shorten the term of our agreement. We were four years before. And going to the three years this time around, I think it was really critically strategic and important. And now, when you look at the world around us, not just with the transition but what we're facing economically, as I've just referred to, I think it's critical that we're in bargaining a year early to deal with these very big compensation issues that we're going to have to be facing this year.

Also, I would say, as with any kind of situation like this, we've had a good relationship with the UAW. We worked well together around the new NAFTA. When all of that was happening, it was really important that workers organizations were on the same page, that we were pushing for, I guess, elements of that trade agreement that would benefit workers.

And I think for us, we have a mutual respect. And we'll use that kind of good relationship, the communications, the idea that we have to obviously advocate for our memberships to make sure that we're getting the best economic package as possible. So I see it as a really good opportunity for us to do some good work this year.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: Great. And as I mentioned, I think yesterday the UAW is still selecting its new president--

LANA PAYNE: Yes.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: --vice president, and one regional director, who are all in runoffs. We won't even know who those people are, or who is selected among those runoff candidates until March. That's quite a timeline to start bargaining. So you've had since August to--

LANA PAYNE: [CHUCKLES] Yes, I'm an old hand at this now, Kristin.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: Yes, you're the senior person here, well, depending on who wins on this-- on the UAW side of things, too. Is there any note of competition between the two unions? I mean, you've characterized this as fairly cooperative and coordinated. But is there any competition, really, between UAW and Unifor?

LANA PAYNE: I think there's always going to be tension, obviously, when you're trying to fight for investment for your members. But that would be true of within each of our unions, too, when you're trying to secure investments for different facilities within the same auto company, or even from all three. So those things have always been there and I suspect always will be there.

I think it's-- we're all grownups here. It's an understanding that in the end we represent working people. And our job is to make sure that we're improving and making progress for those workers. And I think we both take that responsibility very, very heavily.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: I think I want to bring up one more difference that I know about. There's several differences between the UAW and Unifor contracts. But one is Unifor cannot have a national agreement until all the local agreements are completed.

LANA PAYNE: Yes.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: UAW--

LANA PAYNE: Correct.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: --can have a national agreement before all the local agreements are done. And a lot of what goes on for investment and changes in work rules and all of that is done at the local level. So how do you think that that difference, that your locals have to be completed before you move forward, might play in being more favorable to gaining investment or not?

LANA PAYNE: Yeah, I think it has worked for us. I think it's a good approach. And I think from the way we view how we do collective bargaining, which is collective bargaining.

And that is that we try to use it as an opportunity to engage our members to be involved in the union, to participate by submitting proposals, and getting these things settled so that they still feel, and are, part of that bigger master bargaining process. So for us, this is a process that's worked. And until it doesn't, we're going to just keep doing it.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: Well, and we're still seven or eight months, right, from the--

LANA PAYNE: Yes.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: --start of formal talks. I mean, over the summer, there will be meetings, handshakes, and pictures, and then working on some of that boilerplate carryover. Can you talk about some of your broad objectives heading into this round of bargaining?

LANA PAYNE: Yeah, I think, too, that, obviously, a lot of the early bargaining, as you just mentioned, that gets underway a little bit sooner, doing the local issues, which I think is really important because it gives us an extended period of time where we're, as I've said, we're engaging our members. I don't want to over-speculate because that process is underway. And it's really-- it has an integrity to it.

I mean, I don't dictate to our members what their priorities should be at the bargaining table. It is a collaborative effort in terms of our members submitting bargaining proposals and coming up with what their priorities are. So I think that that's a very, very important process.

But we've been chatting here already about some of-- and I've been signaling what I think some of the key items will be at the bargaining table this year. Cost of living-- we've talked about that. COLA clauses, obviously, pensions--

KRISTIN DZICZEK: And can I note, I mean, Unifor has COLA in your pensions as well.

LANA PAYNE: Yes.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: So that's something the UAW doesn't have, either.

LANA PAYNE: And pensions, which as I've mentioned, is very critical. We had a very good discussion in 2020 on how we could make some progress around pensions. But I can guarantee you, when you go 15 years without making substantial changes, that this is-- this will be something that will be a priority likely for our members.

Income security-- and I say that because with transitions happening, there are going to be down periods. And this means making sure that our members are-- feel that they're able to support themselves during that retooling process, that there are skills development happening during that time, if needed. And of course, I would also say that this really-- and the importance of those provisions in our collective agreements really were highlighted during the pandemic because we had a lot of up-and-down weeks because of supply-chain interruptions. So these elements of the collective agreement became really pronounced and really important for a large section of our membership.

I'm going to add something here that I've had members speak to me about. And it may end up being a topic of discussion, and that's mental health. I don't think that we can ignore what's happening in the world right now and how important it is to have secure and good jobs as a precursor to strong mental health.

And we often in our union use auto bargaining because of the stage that it provides us, affecting 40,000 workers in one way or another, 20-plus thousand in assembly, but then seeing what would happen in the supply-chain end of things afterwards, to really make what I would call groundbreaking things. We've negotiated childcare benefits. We've negotiated things like Women's Advocates, which is a program now that's been adopted around the world by trade unions.

In 2020 bargaining, we negotiated Racial Justice Advocates, which then became a huge momentum-builder in our union. And we've been negotiating these at many, many bargaining tables in all sectors of the economy. And I think potentially the area of mental health is one of those areas where we're going to have to put our heads together and do something really important here, and understand that this is the next thing that people expect to have reflected in their collective agreements are strong mental health supports and a really good understanding and awareness around these issues.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: That's really interesting. And there's been a push on the UAW side on some mental health issues, some drug-use issues and drug-abuse issues as well that have been problems and plaguing some of the plants. I want to go back to COLA for just a second as a context.

The UAW had COLA in their contracts. It was suspended in the bankruptcy rounds. It was eliminated entirely in subsequent rounds of their agreement. So there is no COLA language in a UAW Detroit Three contract right now.

In sequential things, the agricultural implements sector goes first, really, in the US. So bargaining a case in New Holland, which is under a strike right now, an 8-month-long strike. But John Deere contract in 2021 did win back COLA that had been eliminated from their agreement. Every UAW member, it seems, knows this and is going to be looking for COLA to be one of their major demands in 2023 bargaining. So that is one more thing on the table here that you will not be facing, so another big difference.

LANA PAYNE: Well, I think-- I would say though, Kristin, that it is about making improvements to that because we've had pared back or frozen clauses or not applied in the same way that they would have historically been done. So it will be a challenge. And it will be a priority, I suspect, to make improvements around those COLA provisions.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: Right. We've got a question from one of our audience members, Mike Malaga. "Are you bracing for a big fight? Or do you think contract talks will go smoothly?"

And yesterday, I showed some data on how profitable these companies have been recently. They're certainly making a lot of money on fewer and lower volumes, which is another question we had here. Trying to figure out where it went to. It's on here somewhere. Whoever asked that question, I can't find it right now.

But when we have lower volumes, we have-- the plants have been down for supply-chain disruptions and all sorts of other things. What kind of level of opposition do you think you'll face from the company side?

LANA PAYNE: Yeah, I never go into a round of bargaining, and I don't think our committees do either or our staff, thinking that this is going to end up in a dispute. I think that that's a wrong approach to take. I think you have to go with goals in mind, which we will have, and with an objective to get those things achieved.

I think that if you look at what's happening in Canada at the moment, there are a lot of things at stake. We want this transition to go well. We have for the first time in a long time, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, governments who are keen to expand this sector all along the supply chain. I mean, we have an opportunity in Canada right now to turn what was basically a central Canadian industry into a full-on pan-Canadian industry, with the mineral development in the north, processing development in-- happening in Quebec, assembly in Ontario.

So there is a lot at stake. And I think Canada feels that it is a stable and important place where automakers can make investments. And I think for us, from a bargaining perspective, we have a job to do. We have things to deliver for our members, and those will be our goals.

They're always tough. Let's face it, these are some of the biggest corporations on the planet. This is not going to be a cakewalk. I don't want to leave you with that impression.

But we know what our job is. And we have cool heads. And I think we've always shown that we can be tough when we need to be. And we can get good agreements for our members.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: So Unifor did something really unusual in 2020. You negotiated for an investment that was beyond the term of the agreement for Oakville at Ford.

LANA PAYNE: We did, yes.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: And I want to tie that to one of the questions here from Laura Putre. There's likely job losses, or idles at least, when you do these major transitions, like you mentioned at BrightDrop. What kind of protections do you have for members when they are-- their plant is down for a significant amount of time?

Here in the US, there's often another plant that can absorb some workers that's nearby. And it's not a huge, long commute. But in Canada, those are long drives between Oakville and Windsor, and even Oshawa and CAMI and Ingersoll. So what happens to the workers while they're being displaced, or those workers at BrightDrop who had job losses in the transition?

LANA PAYNE: Yeah, so good-- that's a great question. It's why this whole issue of income support or job security measures or parts of our collective agreement will be discussed this year. It's interesting. On Oakville, when we were in 2020 bargaining, it looked like that the retooling was going to be upwards of 18 months. And now, we're down to, I think, five or six months of a period that we're projecting for retooling, so much reduced.

And the idea is in that period that, obviously, we have what we call a subplan that we've negotiated over time for our members. So that's an added amount that they would get to the employment insurance system when they're out of work, which is a great-- I think a great way to retain workers during down periods. I encourage all employers to do it because it helps in a much more fulsome way replace income for workers. As well, during those periods I expect, and many of the discussions that we've had with Ford and others is if reskilling is needed during that time, this would be the ideal time to do it, when workers-- when the retooling is happening. And really, our goal is to try and do everything we can to compress that period so that there is minimal amount of disruption.

And I would say that on the other side of things, when there is a complete job loss, so for example, in the Ingersoll supply chain situation with our auto parts workplaces, this is something that we haven't discussed a lot right now, Kristin. But as part of our strategy for the auto sector going forward, we've identified about one third of our independent parts workplaces that will be impacted, as I mentioned, by that transition. So we've come up with a number of proposals and what we believe are really great ideas about how we can mitigate that kind of situation for workers.

So for example, making sure that there is preferential hiring in new facilities, whether it's battery plants or whatever the new kind of EV supply-chain workplace is going to look like, but also supports from government or others to make sure that these auto facilities that are producing parts that will no longer be needed are able to transition and move into a new area of product. And as well doing a skills inventory for our members, making sure that we know what skills they have and what skills might be needed, so any number of things that we have already been working on to try and lessen the pain of the transition for working people.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: Are there provisions in your existing contracts about these new facilities, especially the new joint venture facilities for battery production, that gives you a organizing preference? Or do you start from scratch with the Stellantis LG plant in Windsor? I mean, what-- what's your approach to when a joint-venture facility comes online?

LANA PAYNE: Yeah, and you probably recall, Kristin, this wouldn't be the first time that we've dealt with a joint venture--

KRISTIN DZICZEK: Which is why CAMI's offline.

LANA PAYNE: Yes, exactly. So we have some experience with this. I would say, we watched really with a lot of hope and inspiration when we saw the recent vote in Ohio. I think it was 98% of workers at that facility voting for the-- for a union and for collective bargaining.

And what really enabled that to happen, I think, in the way that it did was an agreement by the employer to say, we're going to be neutral here. And we're not going to be in a situation where we're trying to convince working people not to join a union. And I think that this is important. Those kind of neutrality agreements are critical to how we're going to organize the sector going forward.

But having said that, I want to be very clear. These are important parts of the auto sector of the future. And we expect as the auto union in Canada that these will be good unionized jobs.

And I think it's important that I send that message. We just, by the way, organized a wonderful auto parts facility. We've been at it for many years. In Windsor this week, we just certified I think yesterday over 500 members in that auto parts facility, which is also interesting because they supply nonunion OEMs, so Toyota and others.

And I think that the message is, is that we want the auto industry to be synonymous with good jobs, good union jobs, stable, family-supporting jobs. And I think the automakers themselves also participate in this narrative. And as I said before, the competitive edge for employers going forward is being able to have good, respectful workplaces that offer good benefits and wages. That's how you're going to recruit. And that's how you're going to keep workers going into the future.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: Well, you mentioned earlier, one of the great strengths of Canada is you have a lot of these critical minerals that the auto industry needs to electrify, including mining and refining and processing and cathode and anode investments and all of that. We've got a question from Daniil Manaenkov-- "With a bunch of new industrial policies in North America, and particularly in the US, what industries do you think might be good targets for Unifor to expand into? Or are there other unions in Canada that will be working to unionize mining, refining processing, cathode and anode materials, and all of that?"

LANA PAYNE: Oh, great question. Well, Unifor is a union for everyone, I will just say. We are already present in the mining sector.

We have mining members in many provinces in Canada, including Quebec and British Columbia. So this is not-- and here in Ontario. This is not unknown territory for us.

So I expect that we'll be looking at wherever the opportunities can be that fit strategically, obviously, with our union and make sense for us to be there. And working people, particularly in these kind of industrial workplaces, whether it's mines, whether it's factories, have traditionally been favorable to joining unions. So we do see them as-- we do see this as an opportunity for unionization.

And we are in a unionizing moment in North America. The United States has seen this on a number of fronts, whether it's traditional unions organizing or workers basically creating their own unions, as we've seen at Amazon or Google or Apple or The New York Times. Working people are seeing the importance of coming together collectively to be able to improve and have a say in their working conditions. And there are all kinds of factors over many decades that have contributed to this moment. But the pandemic and obviously a tightening labor market have really highlighted what it is that unions can do for working people.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: So I'm going to go to another question from the audience. EVs cost more than internal-combustion-engine vehicles right now. I think I have it at about a 35% price premium in the market right now.

This person, Scott, says, "Neither unions or the OEMs seem to be in the driver's seat. Government support is needed. Is there consideration about how to involve government in the discussion?"

You mentioned earlier the unprecedented cooperation between the Ford government and the Trudeau government in bringing some of these investments and a unique structure to how they're anchoring those investments in Canada. Do you want to talk a little bit more about what other government supports may be needed? You had that 29-point plan. Are there things you'd like to highlight--

[CHUCKLING]

--that they haven't done yet?

LANA PAYNE: Yes. Well, I do think that incentives, particularly in the early stages of the transition to EVs, are going to be important until we get to a critical mass of production. And once you get there, obviously, I don't think those more-- having the vehicles be more expensive will continue to be a problem. We all when you start something new, the costs are different than when you've been doing it for 10 years or 15 years. So obviously, I think that that's important.

But also, governments have to step up in other ways. And this has been part of our discussion as well. And that's the key infrastructure that's going to be needed for electric vehicles all across the country.

We have gas stations everywhere. There's going to have to be a way, whether it's in condo buildings, whether it's through all sorts of infrastructure around highways, to be able to do this. And governments are going to have to be part of that solution as well.

And there are many conversations happening about how quickly that can be done. There are a lot of things that we need to occur to make this a success, which is why I'm saying the transition is so important. It's so important to get it right. It's so important that everybody is working to make it happen, unions, employers, governments, all stakeholders, because there are going to be other sectors of the economy that are watching what we're doing right now. And if we don't get it done well, if we don't do this well, it's going to be tough to transition some of these other sectors, particularly when, I would say, when it comes to the worker side of things.

So we'll continue to have those discussions with government about how we make all of this happen. But I will say, we're not taking anything for granted. Yes, right now we have a good relationship with the federal and provincial governments.

By the way, Quebec as well is in the mix of this. They've been doing a lot of good work ahead of trying to attract investment as well. But none of that should be taken for granted.

We can't just sit back and say, it's going to continue. We as a union will continue to do what we've done over decades. And that's keep the pressure on to make sure that we have a robust auto sector in Canada.

And I would say that that's been a big part of our success here is that even during the dark days of economic crises, financial crises, bad trade deals, nobody on the political side wanting to listen to you about the auto sector, really doors being closed everywhere, our members just kept this alive. They kept advocating and really pushing to make sure everyone understood the importance of this sector to Canada. And I think that that's part of the reason that we're where we are right now because of the skills of our members, because of their commitment to having the sector in Canada, and because of their involvement in political action around this.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: So Unifor and the Canadian government, the Ontario and Quebec government have been successful in landing electric vehicle investments in most of your plants. But you do have some large engine and transmission facilities--

LANA PAYNE: Yes.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: --and making eight-cylinder engines and six-cylinder engines and some things that there may be, if you heard our outlook panel yesterday, some "rationalization" is the word. But there could be plant closures as we ramp down the internal-combustion-engine production. What kinds of things are you thinking about on the powertrain and propulsion side of things for your workers?

LANA PAYNE: Yeah, for sure. Well, right now, those plants are doing very well because there's a high demand for what they're producing, both in Windsor and in St. Catharines, for sure. I think the key here is that we are still going to need these engines for a while yet. So it's about-- and our members are darn good at what they produce in this regard.

I think what we have to do-- and this is something that I believe obviously will be discussed in bargaining this year. But it's an ongoing discussion with the automakers. And that is we can do both. These facilities can be converted so that you have electric motors, that you're doing what is required on the electric vehicle side while still producing what's needed for ICE vehicles. So the question is here about how we continue to get investment, particularly in those facilities, so that they're a part, and having those investments early so that you're not left out 10 years down the road when all of the investments have been secured or made.

So this is a preoccupation for us, I would say. And I thank you for raising it, Kristin. It's something that we will continue to push and to make sure that we're getting investment in those areas.

I've actually raised this a number of times, I will say, with both the federal industry minister and the premier of Ontario as well, given that we're really interested in making sure that we're localizing the supply chain. And that means producing everything in Canada that we can produce in the supply chain for the shift to EV. Whether that's motors, whatever is going to be required, we believe that we have an opportunity here in Canada to be able to do this work. And it's about creating the conditions for that to happen.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: That's a great segue into a question we got from Don Grimes. And, Don, I'm going to stretch it a little bit. Don asks, "There's a lot of trade between Canada and the US. How easily can batteries for EVs be transported between the two countries? Or will they need to be internally produced?"

I want to tag on to that the most recent US policy in the internal-- in the Inflation Reduction Act has a strong incentive for battery production in the United States, with $45 a kilowatt hour incentive for anyone who's making their batteries here in the US. So do you expect that all your batteries and cells will be made in Canada? Will there be transport issues? Or will the Canadian government need to step up with a similar-sized incentive to bring more battery plants to Canada?

LANA PAYNE: Well, they have done what I would call investments in battery plants. They've been trying to also attract that kind of investment to Canada with incentives. I would say-- and of course, our industry minister has been traveling the world selling Canada as a good place for this. And the critical minerals that we offer plays into this as well.

I think the pandemic and what has happened to supply chains has changed, in some ways, business thinking. It has had to. How do we make sure that we're securing what it is that we need to produce what it is that we're producing?

And if there are challenges around supply chains and the security of those supply chains, you are seeing more of a need to localize some of those chains and some of the elements of the supply chain. And I would argue that batteries fit into that particularly well, that it makes good sense to be producing where you can as close to the facility where you're going to be using them, or at very least, assembling them in the new EV factory. And this is the case, obviously, at Ford Oakville, where they will be doing that.

So it's like everything else. It's about pushing to make sure that we're getting as much of this as we can. And I think it's interesting that governments are seeing the need to make sure these investments are made today because the investments that are made today are going to benefit our economies for decades to come.

And if you're not in there now, there is a lot to be lost. And I think that many of the governments in Canada, federal and provincial, do recognize the kind of moment that we're in.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: So another provision of the Inflation Reduction Act incentives is a ramping up of a weaning off of China as a source for battery minerals and components. And I wanted to ask you if you think Canada will have or does have some of the same intentions to diminish the role of China in battery supply chain. I know there's been some actions on foreign direct investment in some of the Canadian minerals work, even outside of Canada, some Canadian companies that were operating in other countries. So can you talk about how-- what the role of China is in this? And where do you think the Canadian government is heading?

LANA PAYNE: Yeah, I think for Canada, what they have been trying to do at the moment is sell Canada as a place where we have the critical minerals that are needed. And what I would say there is that it is really important that we're securing that as well, that we're making sure we're developing it and doing the value add here in Canada. It makes no sense to develop these minerals and send them off somewhere else. I mean, I'm sure we will be exporting, too. But what can we do to get every ounce of a value add out of the development in these mining facilities or mining projects that are going to come on the stream?

I want to point one thing out, though. A lot of these-- this development is going to be happening likely in the north, likely in Indigenous communities, likely in places where there are treaty agreements. So this means there has to be the work that is required in Canada.

We're having a very big conversation right now, and rightfully so, around reconciliation and what that looks like. And our auto paper actually addresses this. And that is what we're calling consent-based development.

So when we get into the development of these critical minerals, we have to make sure that Indigenous people and communities are involved in the process, that they're giving their OK, that they are benefiting as well from those developments and economically and otherwise. So I just want to put that out there.

It's not as simple as saying, come on in. We're going to start these mines up. There-- this needs to be done right. And we have an opportunity to do it right.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: So I'm going to bring up something kind of different. But I saw you tweet this past week after Flavio Volpe and APMA unveiled Project Arrow out at CES. It's sort of a, I thought, a kind of crazy idea that my friend Flavio had a few years ago to make from the bottom up a completely Canadian electric vehicle.

Now, he got some Italian designers and some other things involved because he's Flavio. But what do you think is really the impact of something like that as a demonstration project, of Project Arrow showing what Canadian universities, Canadian skilled workers, Canadian materials and companies and suppliers can do?

LANA PAYNE: Yeah, I think it is super cool, by the way, from a whole bunch of perspectives, not the least of which is my daughter is studying engineering at university. So she also thinks this is super cool. And when 21-year-olds think something is cool, then I guess it is.

But it is the moment of being able to show this, too, when everybody is kind of talking about what's possible, and being able to showcase that look what we can do here in Canada. I think it's great. And innovation is a thing where you have to dream big. And that's how we feel the progress of the future.

And to be able to say that Canada can do this, and to show concretely how we can do it, I think, is a great-- a truly great thing. And I can't wait to see it, the final product. So that's going to be, I think, over the coming weeks very, very exciting. And kudos to him and all of his team, and all of the incredible young talent that they brought along to be able to experience doing this amazing thing, which-- university students who got to be part of it. And, yeah, I think more of this kind of a project is good for Canada.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: Well, and suicide doors-- it's really, it's cool looking. I think it's pretty cool.

LANA PAYNE: It is pretty cool. OK, so now you agree that it's cool. That's good.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: Yeah, well, I thought it was crazy to start with. But, I mean, he got people behind him. One thing that it leads me to think about, though, is Canada doesn't have a Canadian automaker.

You have US automakers. You have Japanese automakers. Do you think you lead to having a Canadian automaker in this EV space, is that possible?

LANA PAYNE: Well, I think anything is possible right now, given who would have thought we would have been in this kind of a moment? What I do see happening is a lot more automakers coming on the scene around the world. So anything is possible.

What I would say is, it doesn't change, from our perspective, what it is that we need to do as a union. And that's continuing to advocate to make sure that we're getting as big of a piece of the EV future as we can. And it's exciting times. I think I've stressed that.

I mean, it's been difficult the last three years. And any transition is difficult. And it's going to continue to be challenging for workers, for all of the reasons that we've discussed. But it really is about making sure that there's an industry there for the future. And sometimes we've got to go through a few bumps to make sure that that happens.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: We have another question from the audience that I want to bring in here. "The EV shift seems to be giving automakers an opportunity to build new manufacturing facilities in non-union states in the US. How concerned are you about that in Canada? And what's your plan to counteract that?"

LANA PAYNE: Yes, non-union states. Well, I think we just have to keep focused on what we've been doing and what we can do here. And that is our members produce great vehicles.

They are extremely highly skilled. We have lots of things that we can sell in that regard. And they have been known to win incredible awards all the time with the work that they do.

And I would say this other thing. We are in a different dynamic, I mentioned this earlier, around the labor market. And it really is going to be about where the available workforce is, but where the skilled workforce is. You can't just assume you're going to have a ready-made labor force anymore, not with the kind of tightening labor markets that we've seen.

Yes, of course, there's the possibility of a recession this year, not the least of which is likely spurred on because of high interest rates or higher interest rates than we've seen. But that is not likely going to change the need for skilled workers. And we're going to compete on that basis because we believe our members are the folks that can sell this for us.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: Well, and in Canada, I mean, you mentioned Ontario and Quebec. But primarily, the auto footprint is in Ontario. I think it would help our audience to understand union density in the US varies by geography. What is union density like in Ontario?

LANA PAYNE: Yeah, it's-- well, I mean, obviously, if you're talking about the private sector, I think we're in like the 15%, 18% range, something like that. And overall, it's-- we're much higher when you include public-sector workers. But if you look at what we've been able to achieve because of our density in the auto sector, we have workers in non-union assembly facilities-- Toyota, Honda-- also in Ontario.

And what happens there as a kind of union-avoidance measure by the employers is when we bargain for the Detroit Three, they adopt those wages. They adopt very much the compensation as a way to keep the union out of the workplace. And so in many ways, we're also bargaining market rates for a whole ton of workers who are not in our union.

And I think that that's true of many sectors in Canada, particularly where Unifor has density. We have workers in aerospace where this would be the case, in energy, in any number of sectors where we would be setting a standard for the whole sector, and forestry being another one. So I think it's important not to get away from the fact that if your job is to want to make progress for working people, having strong union density helps not just the people who are in the union but workers who are not. And no one should lose sight of that.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: Well, and you bring up another thing that some of our questions have asked. I'm going to wrap them all up together in this one. But neither Unifor nor the UAW have made inroads into organizing these international firms.

Toyota and Honda you mentioned in Ontario both have large manufacturing presence there. They're making hybrid vehicles, in one of those factories at least. Has Unifor tried to organize these plants? We know UAW has? And is organizing workers in those plants a priority for you?

LANA PAYNE: Yeah, we continue to have a lot of dialogue with workers in both Toyota and Honda. And we're going to continue to do it. Organizing for us is a long game. It has to be.

And this auto parts facility that I just mentioned that we certified for this week, we were at that for years and put it over the top now. So you've just got to keep plugging away at this. There are any number of members-- workers in those facilities who want to be unionized. They want to have collective bargaining. They want to have democracy at work.

So we're just going to keep going because I believe eventually there's going to be a moment in time where this is going to happen. That is no doubt in my mind about that. And I think organizing the supply chain for these OEMs is part of the strategy around that as well so that there is this link among workers in the supply chain and in the assembly plant. And if we've got some of them organized, that will lead and build momentum to others.

I think it's important to understand why we need to work to have these kind of neutrality agreements. This is incredibly important that you don't have employers interfering with workers' ability to be able to vote for a union. We have antiquated-- what I would call antiquated labor laws in many parts of our country that make it very difficult to organize. Those things need to be updated.

It's part of our political agenda and our work in the union to keep pushing to make sure that we have better organizing laws across the country. And in places where we have, you do see, like we saw in Ohio, workers jumping at the chance to be able to join a union. So all of that is a work in progress. And you never give up. That's the whole point.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: Well, Lana, it's been a pleasure to talk with you. And I really enjoyed this conversation. I believe our attendees have as well. I'm going to give you one last time to tell us something that you think we should leave here with.

LANA PAYNE: I will just say, it's been a pleasure. And it's an honor to be able to enter this space for our union. And with our members in the auto sector right now, it is such an incredible moment, an extraordinary time, as I've mentioned.

But it will be a time that will have anxiety and stress for working people. And our focus as a union is to try to mitigate that as much as possible, and to make sure that workers have the good jobs that should be there in the EV future in the auto sector. And we're going to be solely focused on this. And I think it's going to be a very, very exciting time for working people in the auto sector.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: Great. Thank you for being with us. And if I could have appreciation for Lana for joining us here.

[APPLAUSE]

LANA PAYNE: Thank you. Thank you, everybody.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: Thank you. Great.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: I am super excited about our first guest. I have a long interest in following what the organized labor and the auto industry does, and how it plays a role in the future of our industry. And it's been a few tumultuous years for organized labor, as they've been sorting out some scandals, sorting out some big changes in the industry about what jobs are, where those jobs are, even all the way through the supply chain. Because we're adding batteries and motors and e-trans axles, we're also losing exhaust pipes and fuel pumps and other things in the supply chain, which is also impacting unionized labor.

So it's a really critical year. And I'm super fortunate to have the new president of Unifor, who was just elected in August 2022, to talk with us about what she sees going forward into this year's negotiations. So she is here with us virtually. So that's why I'm on screen with Lana Payne here.

And Lana, she's going to give us a few introductory remarks. And then we'll get into the discussion. Please join us on Pigeonhole, and give us your questions as well. Welcome, Lana.

LANA PAYNE: Great. Thank you, Kristin. It really is an honor to be here with all of you. And good morning to everyone. I hope you've all had your coffee already, or at least you're on coffee number three.

It's a pleasure, obviously, to be speaking with you, even if it is virtually from here in Toronto, and especially considering I think also how critical I've been of monetary policy by central bankers lately, particularly in what's been happening in Canada. So it was great to get this invitation. And I really appreciate all the effort that folks like Rick and Leslie and you yourself and others have put in to make this work, given the kind of scheduling challenges that I have had this month.

Let me start by saying, it's an honor to have this space with you today. And I consider it a privilege to get to chat with such a distinguished group of industry observers, business representatives, and officials on a topic that is of such importance to our union and our members. I'm told today that my appearance might be a first for a Canadian labor leader. So I'd say this is a double honor, so thank you very much for that.

And of course, as a proud Canadian and unapologetic proud New Foundlander, I would say, what took you so long? You know that we're a friendly bunch up here and quite accessible, well, most of the time. And I might add that we make some pretty damn fine cars and parts in our country.

In all seriousness, though, I'm really glad to have the opportunity to share some thoughts and perspectives ahead of what will be the most significant year for North American auto workers within this historic shift towards vehicle electrification. I was elected Unifor president on August 10th of last year at our Union's Constitutional Convention. And in less than 24 hours, on August 11th, I was formally launching to the world Unifor's new auto industry policy called Navigating the Road Ahead.

It was a heck of a first day on the job, let me tell you. And it shows just how central the auto industry is, not just for tens of thousands of Unifor members in the sector but for hundreds of thousands of workers up and down the value chain in Canada, and millions throughout, of course, North America. Our strategy contains 29 specific recommendations developed by rank-and-file leadership and staff.

Each recommendation, though, serves as an important, I would say, piece of a large and complex puzzle to ensure that Canada's economic, climate, trade, and labor policies work in sync to maximize the benefits of this EV transition for workers. The scale of this industrial transformation doesn't happen often. We all know this.

And we also that the stakes are very, very high. The job implications of building vehicles with fewer moving parts, as Kristin has just pointed out in her opening, is not lost on us as a union. Our own internal analysis shows that nearly one third of our membership in the independent parts supply sector are vulnerable to the shift to EVs. That's thousands of workers building parts that are simply non-transferable to electric vehicles.

What happens to those good union jobs? What happens to those critical skills? This is a real challenge for all of us. And our policy document presents some possible solutions on this front.

At the same time, we look at the shift towards zero-emission vehicles as part of an inevitable evolution. We see the opportunities the shift presents to secure new work in our plants, new tools and skills in the hands of workers, new openings for regional economic development and innovation. We also see this as a necessary shift to tackle greenhouse gas emissions in transportation, a key contributor, as we all know, to climate change, the most pressing existential threat of our generation.

I don't think I need to oversell this any more than I am. But I do want to ante up a little further. I'm going to suggest that more at stake in this transition than the auto industry itself, as important as that is, how this shift is managed and executed will have broader political and economic ramifications for tens of millions of workers in other climate-affected industries.

In many respects, the auto sector is the first major industrial sector to undertake a mass-scale green transition. It will serve as a testing ground and will happen under a microscope. In other words, everyone is watching, so no pressure.

As a union, we're focused on how workers will fare in the shift to a clean economy. What will these jobs look like? Will they build communities, raise living standards, and benefit from unionization?

Or will they be plagued by precarity, low wages, and limited benefits? These are some of the outstanding questions on the minds of millions of workers, including Unifor members. Suffice it to say, we must get this transition right.

Now prior to serving as national president, I held the office of secretary treasurer for Unifor. And in that capacity, I had the privilege of participating on the Unifor Master Bargaining Committee during 2020 contract talks with the Detroit Three. The bargaining round proved a watershed moment for Canada's auto industry.

We entered talks without as much as a single dime allocated to future EV assembly investment in our country, and lingering fears that Canada would be an afterthought in the global shift to electrification. By the time we had completed negotiations over 2020 and 2021, our union helped secure $4.3 billion in new EV-related investment, breathing new life in assembly plants in Oakville, Windsor, and Ingersoll, with commitments made to Brampton in 2022. And along the way, we successfully negotiated the restart of vehicle reproduction-- of vehicle production in Oshawa, a victory most thought completely impossible. This represented over $1 billion in investment as well.

What you might not know is with the new jobs, this is now a factory with a workforce that is now 50% women, something also thought impossible not that long ago. Those 2020 and 2021 negotiations inspired what's been perhaps the most impressive series of auto investments that we've seen in Canada in generations. At last count, we were nearing $20 billion, in Canadian dollars, of course, from assembly programs to battery components to precursor materials to critical minerals.

According to our friends at the Center for Automotive Research, all of this represents about 15% of total EV investment across the continent, a shade above our share of the North American sales market. This is important since EV investments have significantly outpaced investments in gas-powered vehicles for the past three years, with no signs of relenting. This is a key message we relay to skeptics, who would rather wait and see whether EV production takes shape or proves to be a passing fad.

We see this as a once-in-a-century transformation. Yes, from a workforce perspective, there are many risks. But the biggest risk, in my opinion, would be for our union to refuse to change, to roll the dice and watch our domestic industry die on the vine.

The strong ratification results we received in 2020 shows that this isn't a risk that our members are willing to take. It's not a risk governments are willing to take, either. I will tell you that what's most impressed me is the full commitment and coordination we've seen between the federal and provincial governments making the case for new investment in Canada.

It's one of those very, very rare occasions where collaboration transcends partisan politics, a federal liberal government working with a provincial conservative government. In your world, it would be Democrats and Republicans working together. I know, a shocking prospect, but it's been happening here, and with all an eye to growing this vital industry. These are truly remarkable times.

As many of you know, the next cycle of collective bargaining takes place this year. And it's not just for Unifor members in Canada but for members of the UAW as well. For those not following the bargaining cycles as closely as we do, this will mark the first time our two unions will be bargaining concurrently since 1999. Of course, I'm not including the extraordinary off-cycle bargaining that took place in 2009 on the heels of the global financial crisis.

Without a doubt, you'll be hearing a lot about jobs, about job quality, about income security, and the EV transition over the coming months, and perhaps a lot about investment, too. Bargaining has a tendency to put these critical worker issues in the public spotlight. Our internal processes and bargaining prep will continue to work itself through over the coming months. But it's fair to say that we do see this year's talks as a sort of waystation on the path to electrification.

2023 is the next stop on the road to implementing new EV architecture at many of our Canadian facilities. Bargaining provides an opportunity, as we all know, to ensure our collective agreements are equipped to support workers through this transition period, from workforce retention to income security, as I've said, and to skills readiness. And, yes, despite economic storm clouds looming, largely manufactured by central bankers, I might add, we'll be bargaining against the backdrop of a very tight labor market, with a high demand for skills. This puts workers very much in the driver's seat, and my team and I are really looking forward to getting talks underway.

Let me close these initial remarks by recognizing that the auto sector is at a certain inflection point right now. The decisions made today-- to be clear, the decisions made today on matters of product allocation, consumer adoption, and skills will define what success looks like from decades from now. How we define job quality and promote collective bargaining as a social good will, in turn, present our vision for what a truly just transition can and should be. We have to get this right. And as I've said, everyone is watching.

Last month, I had a wonderful opportunity to attend the official start of production of the new BrightDrop Zevo delivery vans at the GM CAMI plant in Ingersoll, the first operational and fully electric assembly plant in Canadian history. I can tell you, I was so proud to stand there, along with our Local 88 members, who are so committed to this project and excited to see it succeed, a group of workers who had the opportunity to discuss, debate, and ultimately vote to accept this transition plan in the course of their bargaining. The ownership they've taken in this project fuels the pride in the work that they will do. It's inspiring.

CAMI, like I imagine Factory ZERO in Detroit, will quickly become a case study on this transition. And there are lessons that we can take from these early experiences to shape our responses moving forward. There's an undeniable anxiety, though, and we must understand this, that afflicts workers during these periods. Communication strategies by all of us that are clear, honest, and consistent will be critical in the path forward.

It's also important that we do not disregard the challenges that transitions bring. Just so you know, more than 750 Unifor members working in the supply base around the Ingersoll facility lost their jobs as a result of the shift to EV delivery vans. This is a fact. And it's important we understand it and cross-examine it.

What is key here is that we are building stronger public support systems and skills pathways to help transition workers. Just as important is the need to localize supply chains, so we are bringing more of this critical EV work to impacted workplaces and communities. The more that workers, families, and communities feel the direct impacts of this shift, or the direct benefits, I should say, of this shift, the stronger political and person bonds will form. In other words, the more buy-in there will be for the transition in auto but in other sectors, too.

These are, what I would say, extraordinary times. They're also hopeful and exciting times. And I'm really glad to be here with all of you for this hour. And I look forward to your questions and to my chat with Kristin. Thank you very much.

[APPLAUSE]

KRISTIN DZICZEK: Thank you, Lana. It is such a pleasure to have you here. And I want to start off-- I mean, it's-- we have the first woman to lead a car company here in Detroit with Mary Barra. You're the first woman to lead Unifor. And UAW hasn't had a female leader either.

You were just elected last August. Can you tell us a little bit about your campaign and your mandate and your priorities as the first woman leader of Unifor?

LANA PAYNE: Yes, thanks. Well, I can say that I'm really, really proud to have been elected, especially given that this will be our 10th year as a union. We created Unifor in 2013, and we're going to celebrate all that we've accomplished with our members this year.

And as with all elections, the alternative would not have nearly been as amazing, for me particularly. So it is really great and a great honor to be in this important role representing working people, by the way, from coast to coast in our country and I think 20-plus economic sectors in all regions of Canada. It's an incredible honor and a great responsibility.

Throughout the campaign, I talked to hundreds, thousands of our members and our locals about some of their priorities. And so their priorities were incorporated in what I see that we should be doing as a union going into the future. And I can say that some of those things were obviously modernizing our union, making sure that we're improving in areas of democracy and accountability and transparency.

I think this is true of all institutions today, that we have to have a particular focus in those areas. There are any number of issues of concern, particularly around equity issues and the need to make sure that everybody is benefiting from the economy and that all workers are being lifted up. This was raised by many, many of our members.

I think it's important, too, to realize that I was being elected during what is still a global pandemic. And it's important to reflect on how the pandemic has really changed everything, including how unions must respond to the needs of our members.

But also, there's been an incredible redefining of work. And workers are feeling valued about what it is that they do, which I think is incredibly important, given the fact that prior to the pandemic, there were many, many people, many workers in our society who were invisible. And yet all of a sudden we depended on them for the very basics of life. And so this renewed value in what it is that workers do day in and day out to make our world work and to make our society function has in turn, I believe, empowered working people.

So it's quite an exciting time to be president of Unifor, given that, the new sense of the value of work that working people feel. But also, we are facing challenging times as a world, as an economy, and for our planet. So the responsibility is great, and I do feel that every day. But I also, I love to do this work with our members. And I look forward to being able to do some world changing over the next three years.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: Great, thank you. So some of our audience may not know this history. I am old enough to remember some of this happening at the time that it did. And not only that, I assign many reporters who cover union talks to go back and watch a really-- a critical film called Final Offer--

LANA PAYNE: Yes.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: --which you can get on the National Film Board of Canada, nfb.ca. You will never see this level of insight into how union bargaining works. But this is an old, old film that happened.

And I even-- I spoke to the filmmaker a few years ago because I'm like, how on Earth did you get this access? His name is Sturla Gunnarsson. He's an Icelandic filmmaker.

And he was capturing the deindustrialization of the United States and Canada in the early '80s. And he says, well, what better lens than through bargaining? And so he starts filming bargaining in Canada at Oshawa. And it was a year of an incredible long and tumultuous strike, and also the year that the vice president of the UAW's Canada division, Bob White, decided to break away from the UAW.

So Unifor, CAW, was once part of the UAW. Can you give us a little bit of the lesson about what happened? What did Bob White and Sam Gindin do and some of the reasons that led to that split?

LANA PAYNE: I'm sure there's lots of stories there that have even still yet to be told, Kristin.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: Oh, Sam wrote the book.

LANA PAYNE: Yes. He probably didn't put everything in there. I-- well, first of all, of course, I think it's interesting to speak of Unifor in the context of how broad we are.

Before I get to that, I mean, we are-- yes, part of our union is the CAW. And part of our union, of course, is the Communication Energy and Paper Workers Union. And this was the coming together of the creation of Unifor in 2013. And those two great Canadian unions had 90 other organizations over many, many decades to form what became Unifor today.

I think we all know that in the early 1980s, this was a really interesting economic period, as you pointed out. In Canada, we were going through government control, wage controls. Inflation was extremely high.

There was a lot of uncertainty. We were entering a period of trade agreements that we had not seen before and, as you say, the deindustrialization. It was pretty scary times for workers.

And in the backdrop to that, because Unifor auto workers at that point had been members of the UAW for about 50 years, we were facing some serious challenges in the auto sector, not the least of which is what was occurring at Chrysler at the time, which was the company was basically facing financial collapse and needed support. And then there became what I call a real tangly discussion. I am from Newfoundland. I use that word a lot.

But real strong philosophical differences and around what that bargaining should look like heading into bargaining after the Chrysler situation with GM and Ford. And from the UAW's perspective, their American leadership at that point, it was around issues like taking lump-sum payments, profit-sharing. And there was a real what I would say opposition to do that and to do that kind of bargaining in Canada.

And so we ended up with some pretty heated discussions within the union, and then refusing, basically, to take that kind of approach to bargaining in Canada, which eventually led to the UAW leadership basically saying that if we ended up in a labor dispute that they would not provide strike assistance or strike support. And that really led then to what was the breakaway of 1985, so a very storied history, which created some wonderful worker power here in Canada as a result.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: Well, and it continues to this day. Canadian auto workers do not have profit-sharing. They've continued to get annual wage increases in years when the UAW did not. So it's been a very divergent path in unionization.

What do you-- I want to go to a question about how connected the two unions are. So I am a girl from Flint. I buy union-made cars. My most recent one is a US-built car, but the one before was made in CAMI, the one my son is driving.

LANA PAYNE: Mine, too.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: So you're so connected. And have-- this industry is so connected, but especially between the US and Canada. And you encourage your members to purchase these unionized vehicles made on the other side of the border. But there's some really big differences in the policies in the US and Canadian economies, as well as these differences between the UAW and Unifor agreements, which we touched on a little bit. Can you talk about some of those main differences that you see?

LANA PAYNE: Yeah, well, I think first from the economic point of view, obviously, our economy is a lot smaller. I think if we look at scale, you're 10 to 1 to us. So that is kind of huge.

And as with our approach to industrial development in Canada, particularly in the auto industry, policies that are made in the United States do have an impact here. And we have to be aware of that. I think about 90% of what we produce in Canada ends up in the United States. So there is a significant what I would call connection between us.

And we have to be aware of what laws are being passed in the United States that may-- or regulations, obviously, that may impact the auto sector because it could spill over, and often does spill over in terms of having an impact on the Canadian sector as well.

This was why there was quite a lot of concern, for example, in a recent example, when there was a talk about US assembly requirements under a new EV tax credit. You may recall this. We had a bit of concern because we knew that this would impact Canadian jobs, making vehicles in Canada a lot more expensive. But also, it would impact US jobs.

There is-- it's hard to tell anymore when these cars are being assembled how much of it is coming from Canada and how much of it is coming from the US. If you look at our Windsor plant as an example, the Pacifica, I think we have the engines come from Michigan and transmissions from Indiana. So there's really a lot of crossover in terms of what goes into these vehicles. And we knew that this would be-- would have an impact. And I think the resolve that came out of that, which was to have a North American look at this, was really novel, but also, I think, bodes well for the sector going forward. And it was a good result for Canada as well.

When we were thinking about the differences, I would say, between collective agreements between us, for example, and the UAW, there are a number of differences. Some of them we've already highlighted here, Kristin. We don't have profit-sharing in our agreements.

We've focused more on the things that we can guarantee workers. We try not to leave things up to the whims of markets. And as a result, it's about trying to improve, as you mentioned, base wages and other elements of compensation directly in the collective agreement.

A second point I would say is we really put a focus on keeping COLA in our agreements. Even during the difficult period of the 2009 global financial crisis, we made sure that that language was secured in our agreements. And we made a slight improvement in 2020 bargaining.

But it's nowhere near where it traditionally was. But I can guarantee you that this is probably going to be a hot topic in bargaining this year. How do we make sure that these are robust cost-of-living clauses?

And I think the third kind of area that I would say makes a big difference between UAW and us is around health care and health spending. Health spending is a big and expensive item in UAW bargaining, whereas in Canada we have a public universal health program, Medicare for all. And that certainly reduces what it is that we need to bargain at the bargaining table around health care and really gives, I think, our facilities and our bargaining a bit of a competitive edge in our country.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: So I'm going to switch to a question from the audience, which is on my mind, too, as long as we're on the differences between your unions. Was your election-- this is from Bob Chiarelli-- "Was your election based on the vote of delegates or a direct one-member, one-vote approach, as the UAW now has as a result of their federal monitor and the referendum on one member, one vote?" And then the second part of his question is, "How do you think the UAW shift to direct voting will change the direction of the union?"

LANA PAYNE: Well, I-- in Canada, we still have a delegated convention. There were close to, I think, 2,500 or 3,000 delegates that would have participated, representing every single local in Unifor over 650 locals. And I'm honored to have received their support.

And the way it works is these are often, as well, people who are elected in their locals to come to our constitutional convention to elect the national leadership. And it is different than the one-member, one-vote that he's referred to. In terms of how it will change things, I can't speak for the UAW.

I will say to you that we did have a resolution to our delegates on the floor speaking to change to a one-member, one-vote. It was turned down by over 80% by Unifor leaders from all across the country. So right now, that is the system that we have.

And it-- I think there are pros and cons to both is what I would say. Some of our unions-- some of our local unions obviously have one-member, one-vote as systems as well in their bylaws. So Unifor folks are elected in a variety of ways.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: So thank you for that. So let's-- we've talked about some of the differences. What about some of the similarities between the two unions? I mean, one similarity is I believe the UAW still has a local in Canada so that they can call themselves the International United Auto Workers. So they still represent some Canadian workers, just one local. But what are some other similarities?

LANA PAYNE: I think we face a lot of similar challenges, Kristin. As unions representing workers in the auto sector, we face a number of things right now, and have historically faced them. How do we secure investments so that we're protecting job security for our members?

Pensions is a critical issue that we both face. We're in the same boat when it comes to this. We've not made pension improvements in more than 15 years, which is probably a little precursor or a hint that this is going to be something that we'll be looking at in bargaining this year, the same way that we did in 2020.

Retention is another issue that I would say is of critical importance, both for the UAW and for us. We all know that we're experiencing a really changing labor market. This was to be predicted, given where we were going to be with demographics in both our countries.

The pandemic changed and hastened that a little bit. But there's no doubt that the demand to retain and attract skills and workers is going to be critical. And in my opinion, the better the strong collective agreements that you have are really going to make a difference and will give employers a competitive edge, in my opinion, in terms of attracting workers to their workplaces.

Affordability, I would say, is another issue that's top of mind for all workers right now. We're seeing this at every single collective bargaining table. It's not going to be any different in auto bargaining this year for any of us. Our inflation rate in Canada is about 6.8% last year, I think 7.1% for you in the United States. So obviously, affordability and purchasing power for workers is going to be a critical point of discussion.

And I would-- to be frank, obviously, the internal crises that both unions have had to face obviously is something that we have a bit in common around. For us as a union, we have made clear accountability commitments to our members, including a task force that's currently working on improving accountability and transparency within Unifor. We're also talking about creating the position of an integrity officer as a result of that. And we're working very closely in a renewed fashion with local unions to really make sure that we're meeting their needs across the country.

So it's really interesting economic times. And some things will be unique to the auto industry. But some of these bigger macro issues all workers are facing at the moment.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: Well, and I will note the scandal to which you refer in Canada was the president resigned early after an investigation was initiated. And I believe you were part of that. So it was not quite what we saw on this side of the border, with federal investigations and prison terms and things like that, but still a pretty-- a shocking change, I think, at the head of your union, so just for context.

LANA PAYNE: Yes, it was a constitutional breach involving our code of ethics, which is why we've gone through the process now of making sure that we're working with our members to improve all processes of our union, and making sure that they're part of that.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: So in past rounds of negotiations, you have been off cycle with the UAW. So it's hard to tell who goes first because maybe you go first, and then they go a few years later. But what it seems like is UAW will negotiate in 2019. Unifor for most of the sector goes in 2020. And then the CAMI plant goes in 2021 because it's on a separate agreement.

So this is the-- Mike Wayland's question here. "The UAW and Unifor are negotiating with most of the D3 for the first time in a long time. Is this a positive for your union? And what will be some of the greatest challenges?"

LANA PAYNE: Yeah, I think, obviously, it's important from a number of perspectives. I think it's good for us to be getting at this in the period that we're in. Particularly with the transition, going for another year for us would have been very challenging when you're looking at the timing of when our plants are going to be retooled and the kinds of issues that we have to deal with in this round of bargaining around making sure hopefully that we're improving the income supports around that, shortening, and having a say around shortening, hopefully, retooling periods.

So for us, strategically, it made sense to try and shorten the term of our agreement. We were four years before. And going to the three years this time around, I think it was really critically strategic and important. And now, when you look at the world around us, not just with the transition but what we're facing economically, as I've just referred to, I think it's critical that we're in bargaining a year early to deal with these very big compensation issues that we're going to have to be facing this year.

Also, I would say, as with any kind of situation like this, we've had a good relationship with the UAW. We worked well together around the new NAFTA. When all of that was happening, it was really important that workers organizations were on the same page, that we were pushing for, I guess, elements of that trade agreement that would benefit workers.

And I think for us, we have a mutual respect. And we'll use that kind of good relationship, the communications, the idea that we have to obviously advocate for our memberships to make sure that we're getting the best economic package as possible. So I see it as a really good opportunity for us to do some good work this year.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: Great. And as I mentioned, I think yesterday the UAW is still selecting its new president--

LANA PAYNE: Yes.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: --vice president, and one regional director, who are all in runoffs. We won't even know who those people are, or who is selected among those runoff candidates until March. That's quite a timeline to start bargaining. So you've had since August to--

LANA PAYNE: [CHUCKLES] Yes, I'm an old hand at this now, Kristin.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: Yes, you're the senior person here, well, depending on who wins on this-- on the UAW side of things, too. Is there any note of competition between the two unions? I mean, you've characterized this as fairly cooperative and coordinated. But is there any competition, really, between UAW and Unifor?

LANA PAYNE: I think there's always going to be tension, obviously, when you're trying to fight for investment for your members. But that would be true of within each of our unions, too, when you're trying to secure investments for different facilities within the same auto company, or even from all three. So those things have always been there and I suspect always will be there.

I think it's-- we're all grownups here. It's an understanding that in the end we represent working people. And our job is to make sure that we're improving and making progress for those workers. And I think we both take that responsibility very, very heavily.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: I think I want to bring up one more difference that I know about. There's several differences between the UAW and Unifor contracts. But one is Unifor cannot have a national agreement until all the local agreements are completed.

LANA PAYNE: Yes.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: UAW--

LANA PAYNE: Correct.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: --can have a national agreement before all the local agreements are done. And a lot of what goes on for investment and changes in work rules and all of that is done at the local level. So how do you think that that difference, that your locals have to be completed before you move forward, might play in being more favorable to gaining investment or not?

LANA PAYNE: Yeah, I think it has worked for us. I think it's a good approach. And I think from the way we view how we do collective bargaining, which is collective bargaining.

And that is that we try to use it as an opportunity to engage our members to be involved in the union, to participate by submitting proposals, and getting these things settled so that they still feel, and are, part of that bigger master bargaining process. So for us, this is a process that's worked. And until it doesn't, we're going to just keep doing it.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: Well, and we're still seven or eight months, right, from the--

LANA PAYNE: Yes.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: --start of formal talks. I mean, over the summer, there will be meetings, handshakes, and pictures, and then working on some of that boilerplate carryover. Can you talk about some of your broad objectives heading into this round of bargaining?

LANA PAYNE: Yeah, I think, too, that, obviously, a lot of the early bargaining, as you just mentioned, that gets underway a little bit sooner, doing the local issues, which I think is really important because it gives us an extended period of time where we're, as I've said, we're engaging our members. I don't want to over-speculate because that process is underway. And it's really-- it has an integrity to it.

I mean, I don't dictate to our members what their priorities should be at the bargaining table. It is a collaborative effort in terms of our members submitting bargaining proposals and coming up with what their priorities are. So I think that that's a very, very important process.

But we've been chatting here already about some of-- and I've been signaling what I think some of the key items will be at the bargaining table this year. Cost of living-- we've talked about that. COLA clauses, obviously, pensions--

KRISTIN DZICZEK: And can I note, I mean, Unifor has COLA in your pensions as well.

LANA PAYNE: Yes.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: So that's something the UAW doesn't have, either.

LANA PAYNE: And pensions, which as I've mentioned, is very critical. We had a very good discussion in 2020 on how we could make some progress around pensions. But I can guarantee you, when you go 15 years without making substantial changes, that this is-- this will be something that will be a priority likely for our members.

Income security-- and I say that because with transitions happening, there are going to be down periods. And this means making sure that our members are-- feel that they're able to support themselves during that retooling process, that there are skills development happening during that time, if needed. And of course, I would also say that this really-- and the importance of those provisions in our collective agreements really were highlighted during the pandemic because we had a lot of up-and-down weeks because of supply-chain interruptions. So these elements of the collective agreement became really pronounced and really important for a large section of our membership.

I'm going to add something here that I've had members speak to me about. And it may end up being a topic of discussion, and that's mental health. I don't think that we can ignore what's happening in the world right now and how important it is to have secure and good jobs as a precursor to strong mental health.

And we often in our union use auto bargaining because of the stage that it provides us, affecting 40,000 workers in one way or another, 20-plus thousand in assembly, but then seeing what would happen in the supply-chain end of things afterwards, to really make what I would call groundbreaking things. We've negotiated childcare benefits. We've negotiated things like Women's Advocates, which is a program now that's been adopted around the world by trade unions.

In 2020 bargaining, we negotiated Racial Justice Advocates, which then became a huge momentum-builder in our union. And we've been negotiating these at many, many bargaining tables in all sectors of the economy. And I think potentially the area of mental health is one of those areas where we're going to have to put our heads together and do something really important here, and understand that this is the next thing that people expect to have reflected in their collective agreements are strong mental health supports and a really good understanding and awareness around these issues.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: That's really interesting. And there's been a push on the UAW side on some mental health issues, some drug-use issues and drug-abuse issues as well that have been problems and plaguing some of the plants. I want to go back to COLA for just a second as a context.

The UAW had COLA in their contracts. It was suspended in the bankruptcy rounds. It was eliminated entirely in subsequent rounds of their agreement. So there is no COLA language in a UAW Detroit Three contract right now.

In sequential things, the agricultural implements sector goes first, really, in the US. So bargaining a case in New Holland, which is under a strike right now, an 8-month-long strike. But John Deere contract in 2021 did win back COLA that had been eliminated from their agreement. Every UAW member, it seems, knows this and is going to be looking for COLA to be one of their major demands in 2023 bargaining. So that is one more thing on the table here that you will not be facing, so another big difference.

LANA PAYNE: Well, I think-- I would say though, Kristin, that it is about making improvements to that because we've had pared back or frozen clauses or not applied in the same way that they would have historically been done. So it will be a challenge. And it will be a priority, I suspect, to make improvements around those COLA provisions.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: Right. We've got a question from one of our audience members, Mike Malaga. "Are you bracing for a big fight? Or do you think contract talks will go smoothly?"

And yesterday, I showed some data on how profitable these companies have been recently. They're certainly making a lot of money on fewer and lower volumes, which is another question we had here. Trying to figure out where it went to. It's on here somewhere. Whoever asked that question, I can't find it right now.

But when we have lower volumes, we have-- the plants have been down for supply-chain disruptions and all sorts of other things. What kind of level of opposition do you think you'll face from the company side?

LANA PAYNE: Yeah, I never go into a round of bargaining, and I don't think our committees do either or our staff, thinking that this is going to end up in a dispute. I think that that's a wrong approach to take. I think you have to go with goals in mind, which we will have, and with an objective to get those things achieved.

I think that if you look at what's happening in Canada at the moment, there are a lot of things at stake. We want this transition to go well. We have for the first time in a long time, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, governments who are keen to expand this sector all along the supply chain. I mean, we have an opportunity in Canada right now to turn what was basically a central Canadian industry into a full-on pan-Canadian industry, with the mineral development in the north, processing development in-- happening in Quebec, assembly in Ontario.

So there is a lot at stake. And I think Canada feels that it is a stable and important place where automakers can make investments. And I think for us, from a bargaining perspective, we have a job to do. We have things to deliver for our members, and those will be our goals.

They're always tough. Let's face it, these are some of the biggest corporations on the planet. This is not going to be a cakewalk. I don't want to leave you with that impression.

But we know what our job is. And we have cool heads. And I think we've always shown that we can be tough when we need to be. And we can get good agreements for our members.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: So Unifor did something really unusual in 2020. You negotiated for an investment that was beyond the term of the agreement for Oakville at Ford.

LANA PAYNE: We did, yes.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: And I want to tie that to one of the questions here from Laura Putre. There's likely job losses, or idles at least, when you do these major transitions, like you mentioned at BrightDrop. What kind of protections do you have for members when they are-- their plant is down for a significant amount of time?

Here in the US, there's often another plant that can absorb some workers that's nearby. And it's not a huge, long commute. But in Canada, those are long drives between Oakville and Windsor, and even Oshawa and CAMI and Ingersoll. So what happens to the workers while they're being displaced, or those workers at BrightDrop who had job losses in the transition?

LANA PAYNE: Yeah, so good-- that's a great question. It's why this whole issue of income support or job security measures or parts of our collective agreement will be discussed this year. It's interesting. On Oakville, when we were in 2020 bargaining, it looked like that the retooling was going to be upwards of 18 months. And now, we're down to, I think, five or six months of a period that we're projecting for retooling, so much reduced.

And the idea is in that period that, obviously, we have what we call a subplan that we've negotiated over time for our members. So that's an added amount that they would get to the employment insurance system when they're out of work, which is a great-- I think a great way to retain workers during down periods. I encourage all employers to do it because it helps in a much more fulsome way replace income for workers. As well, during those periods I expect, and many of the discussions that we've had with Ford and others is if reskilling is needed during that time, this would be the ideal time to do it, when workers-- when the retooling is happening. And really, our goal is to try and do everything we can to compress that period so that there is minimal amount of disruption.

And I would say that on the other side of things, when there is a complete job loss, so for example, in the Ingersoll supply chain situation with our auto parts workplaces, this is something that we haven't discussed a lot right now, Kristin. But as part of our strategy for the auto sector going forward, we've identified about one third of our independent parts workplaces that will be impacted, as I mentioned, by that transition. So we've come up with a number of proposals and what we believe are really great ideas about how we can mitigate that kind of situation for workers.

So for example, making sure that there is preferential hiring in new facilities, whether it's battery plants or whatever the new kind of EV supply-chain workplace is going to look like, but also supports from government or others to make sure that these auto facilities that are producing parts that will no longer be needed are able to transition and move into a new area of product. And as well doing a skills inventory for our members, making sure that we know what skills they have and what skills might be needed, so any number of things that we have already been working on to try and lessen the pain of the transition for working people.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: Are there provisions in your existing contracts about these new facilities, especially the new joint venture facilities for battery production, that gives you a organizing preference? Or do you start from scratch with the Stellantis LG plant in Windsor? I mean, what-- what's your approach to when a joint-venture facility comes online?

LANA PAYNE: Yeah, and you probably recall, Kristin, this wouldn't be the first time that we've dealt with a joint venture--

KRISTIN DZICZEK: Which is why CAMI's offline.

LANA PAYNE: Yes, exactly. So we have some experience with this. I would say, we watched really with a lot of hope and inspiration when we saw the recent vote in Ohio. I think it was 98% of workers at that facility voting for the-- for a union and for collective bargaining.

And what really enabled that to happen, I think, in the way that it did was an agreement by the employer to say, we're going to be neutral here. And we're not going to be in a situation where we're trying to convince working people not to join a union. And I think that this is important. Those kind of neutrality agreements are critical to how we're going to organize the sector going forward.

But having said that, I want to be very clear. These are important parts of the auto sector of the future. And we expect as the auto union in Canada that these will be good unionized jobs.

And I think it's important that I send that message. We just, by the way, organized a wonderful auto parts facility. We've been at it for many years. In Windsor this week, we just certified I think yesterday over 500 members in that auto parts facility, which is also interesting because they supply nonunion OEMs, so Toyota and others.

And I think that the message is, is that we want the auto industry to be synonymous with good jobs, good union jobs, stable, family-supporting jobs. And I think the automakers themselves also participate in this narrative. And as I said before, the competitive edge for employers going forward is being able to have good, respectful workplaces that offer good benefits and wages. That's how you're going to recruit. And that's how you're going to keep workers going into the future.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: Well, you mentioned earlier, one of the great strengths of Canada is you have a lot of these critical minerals that the auto industry needs to electrify, including mining and refining and processing and cathode and anode investments and all of that. We've got a question from Daniil Manaenkov-- "With a bunch of new industrial policies in North America, and particularly in the US, what industries do you think might be good targets for Unifor to expand into? Or are there other unions in Canada that will be working to unionize mining, refining processing, cathode and anode materials, and all of that?"

LANA PAYNE: Oh, great question. Well, Unifor is a union for everyone, I will just say. We are already present in the mining sector.

We have mining members in many provinces in Canada, including Quebec and British Columbia. So this is not-- and here in Ontario. This is not unknown territory for us.

So I expect that we'll be looking at wherever the opportunities can be that fit strategically, obviously, with our union and make sense for us to be there. And working people, particularly in these kind of industrial workplaces, whether it's mines, whether it's factories, have traditionally been favorable to joining unions. So we do see them as-- we do see this as an opportunity for unionization.

And we are in a unionizing moment in North America. The United States has seen this on a number of fronts, whether it's traditional unions organizing or workers basically creating their own unions, as we've seen at Amazon or Google or Apple or The New York Times. Working people are seeing the importance of coming together collectively to be able to improve and have a say in their working conditions. And there are all kinds of factors over many decades that have contributed to this moment. But the pandemic and obviously a tightening labor market have really highlighted what it is that unions can do for working people.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: So I'm going to go to another question from the audience. EVs cost more than internal-combustion-engine vehicles right now. I think I have it at about a 35% price premium in the market right now.

This person, Scott, says, "Neither unions or the OEMs seem to be in the driver's seat. Government support is needed. Is there consideration about how to involve government in the discussion?"

You mentioned earlier the unprecedented cooperation between the Ford government and the Trudeau government in bringing some of these investments and a unique structure to how they're anchoring those investments in Canada. Do you want to talk a little bit more about what other government supports may be needed? You had that 29-point plan. Are there things you'd like to highlight--

[CHUCKLING]

--that they haven't done yet?

LANA PAYNE: Yes. Well, I do think that incentives, particularly in the early stages of the transition to EVs, are going to be important until we get to a critical mass of production. And once you get there, obviously, I don't think those more-- having the vehicles be more expensive will continue to be a problem. We all when you start something new, the costs are different than when you've been doing it for 10 years or 15 years. So obviously, I think that that's important.

But also, governments have to step up in other ways. And this has been part of our discussion as well. And that's the key infrastructure that's going to be needed for electric vehicles all across the country.

We have gas stations everywhere. There's going to have to be a way, whether it's in condo buildings, whether it's through all sorts of infrastructure around highways, to be able to do this. And governments are going to have to be part of that solution as well.

And there are many conversations happening about how quickly that can be done. There are a lot of things that we need to occur to make this a success, which is why I'm saying the transition is so important. It's so important to get it right. It's so important that everybody is working to make it happen, unions, employers, governments, all stakeholders, because there are going to be other sectors of the economy that are watching what we're doing right now. And if we don't get it done well, if we don't do this well, it's going to be tough to transition some of these other sectors, particularly when, I would say, when it comes to the worker side of things.

So we'll continue to have those discussions with government about how we make all of this happen. But I will say, we're not taking anything for granted. Yes, right now we have a good relationship with the federal and provincial governments.

By the way, Quebec as well is in the mix of this. They've been doing a lot of good work ahead of trying to attract investment as well. But none of that should be taken for granted.

We can't just sit back and say, it's going to continue. We as a union will continue to do what we've done over decades. And that's keep the pressure on to make sure that we have a robust auto sector in Canada.

And I would say that that's been a big part of our success here is that even during the dark days of economic crises, financial crises, bad trade deals, nobody on the political side wanting to listen to you about the auto sector, really doors being closed everywhere, our members just kept this alive. They kept advocating and really pushing to make sure everyone understood the importance of this sector to Canada. And I think that that's part of the reason that we're where we are right now because of the skills of our members, because of their commitment to having the sector in Canada, and because of their involvement in political action around this.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: So Unifor and the Canadian government, the Ontario and Quebec government have been successful in landing electric vehicle investments in most of your plants. But you do have some large engine and transmission facilities--

LANA PAYNE: Yes.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: --and making eight-cylinder engines and six-cylinder engines and some things that there may be, if you heard our outlook panel yesterday, some "rationalization" is the word. But there could be plant closures as we ramp down the internal-combustion-engine production. What kinds of things are you thinking about on the powertrain and propulsion side of things for your workers?

LANA PAYNE: Yeah, for sure. Well, right now, those plants are doing very well because there's a high demand for what they're producing, both in Windsor and in St. Catharines, for sure. I think the key here is that we are still going to need these engines for a while yet. So it's about-- and our members are darn good at what they produce in this regard.

I think what we have to do-- and this is something that I believe obviously will be discussed in bargaining this year. But it's an ongoing discussion with the automakers. And that is we can do both. These facilities can be converted so that you have electric motors, that you're doing what is required on the electric vehicle side while still producing what's needed for ICE vehicles. So the question is here about how we continue to get investment, particularly in those facilities, so that they're a part, and having those investments early so that you're not left out 10 years down the road when all of the investments have been secured or made.

So this is a preoccupation for us, I would say. And I thank you for raising it, Kristin. It's something that we will continue to push and to make sure that we're getting investment in those areas.

I've actually raised this a number of times, I will say, with both the federal industry minister and the premier of Ontario as well, given that we're really interested in making sure that we're localizing the supply chain. And that means producing everything in Canada that we can produce in the supply chain for the shift to EV. Whether that's motors, whatever is going to be required, we believe that we have an opportunity here in Canada to be able to do this work. And it's about creating the conditions for that to happen.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: That's a great segue into a question we got from Don Grimes. And, Don, I'm going to stretch it a little bit. Don asks, "There's a lot of trade between Canada and the US. How easily can batteries for EVs be transported between the two countries? Or will they need to be internally produced?"

I want to tag on to that the most recent US policy in the internal-- in the Inflation Reduction Act has a strong incentive for battery production in the United States, with $45 a kilowatt hour incentive for anyone who's making their batteries here in the US. So do you expect that all your batteries and cells will be made in Canada? Will there be transport issues? Or will the Canadian government need to step up with a similar-sized incentive to bring more battery plants to Canada?

LANA PAYNE: Well, they have done what I would call investments in battery plants. They've been trying to also attract that kind of investment to Canada with incentives. I would say-- and of course, our industry minister has been traveling the world selling Canada as a good place for this. And the critical minerals that we offer plays into this as well.

I think the pandemic and what has happened to supply chains has changed, in some ways, business thinking. It has had to. How do we make sure that we're securing what it is that we need to produce what it is that we're producing?

And if there are challenges around supply chains and the security of those supply chains, you are seeing more of a need to localize some of those chains and some of the elements of the supply chain. And I would argue that batteries fit into that particularly well, that it makes good sense to be producing where you can as close to the facility where you're going to be using them, or at very least, assembling them in the new EV factory. And this is the case, obviously, at Ford Oakville, where they will be doing that.

So it's like everything else. It's about pushing to make sure that we're getting as much of this as we can. And I think it's interesting that governments are seeing the need to make sure these investments are made today because the investments that are made today are going to benefit our economies for decades to come.

And if you're not in there now, there is a lot to be lost. And I think that many of the governments in Canada, federal and provincial, do recognize the kind of moment that we're in.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: So another provision of the Inflation Reduction Act incentives is a ramping up of a weaning off of China as a source for battery minerals and components. And I wanted to ask you if you think Canada will have or does have some of the same intentions to diminish the role of China in battery supply chain. I know there's been some actions on foreign direct investment in some of the Canadian minerals work, even outside of Canada, some Canadian companies that were operating in other countries. So can you talk about how-- what the role of China is in this? And where do you think the Canadian government is heading?

LANA PAYNE: Yeah, I think for Canada, what they have been trying to do at the moment is sell Canada as a place where we have the critical minerals that are needed. And what I would say there is that it is really important that we're securing that as well, that we're making sure we're developing it and doing the value add here in Canada. It makes no sense to develop these minerals and send them off somewhere else. I mean, I'm sure we will be exporting, too. But what can we do to get every ounce of a value add out of the development in these mining facilities or mining projects that are going to come on the stream?

I want to point one thing out, though. A lot of these-- this development is going to be happening likely in the north, likely in Indigenous communities, likely in places where there are treaty agreements. So this means there has to be the work that is required in Canada.

We're having a very big conversation right now, and rightfully so, around reconciliation and what that looks like. And our auto paper actually addresses this. And that is what we're calling consent-based development.

So when we get into the development of these critical minerals, we have to make sure that Indigenous people and communities are involved in the process, that they're giving their OK, that they are benefiting as well from those developments and economically and otherwise. So I just want to put that out there.

It's not as simple as saying, come on in. We're going to start these mines up. There-- this needs to be done right. And we have an opportunity to do it right.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: So I'm going to bring up something kind of different. But I saw you tweet this past week after Flavio Volpe and APMA unveiled Project Arrow out at CES. It's sort of a, I thought, a kind of crazy idea that my friend Flavio had a few years ago to make from the bottom up a completely Canadian electric vehicle.

Now, he got some Italian designers and some other things involved because he's Flavio. But what do you think is really the impact of something like that as a demonstration project, of Project Arrow showing what Canadian universities, Canadian skilled workers, Canadian materials and companies and suppliers can do?

LANA PAYNE: Yeah, I think it is super cool, by the way, from a whole bunch of perspectives, not the least of which is my daughter is studying engineering at university. So she also thinks this is super cool. And when 21-year-olds think something is cool, then I guess it is.

But it is the moment of being able to show this, too, when everybody is kind of talking about what's possible, and being able to showcase that look what we can do here in Canada. I think it's great. And innovation is a thing where you have to dream big. And that's how we feel the progress of the future.

And to be able to say that Canada can do this, and to show concretely how we can do it, I think, is a great-- a truly great thing. And I can't wait to see it, the final product. So that's going to be, I think, over the coming weeks very, very exciting. And kudos to him and all of his team, and all of the incredible young talent that they brought along to be able to experience doing this amazing thing, which-- university students who got to be part of it. And, yeah, I think more of this kind of a project is good for Canada.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: Well, and suicide doors-- it's really, it's cool looking. I think it's pretty cool.

LANA PAYNE: It is pretty cool. OK, so now you agree that it's cool. That's good.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: Yeah, well, I thought it was crazy to start with. But, I mean, he got people behind him. One thing that it leads me to think about, though, is Canada doesn't have a Canadian automaker.

You have US automakers. You have Japanese automakers. Do you think you lead to having a Canadian automaker in this EV space, is that possible?

LANA PAYNE: Well, I think anything is possible right now, given who would have thought we would have been in this kind of a moment? What I do see happening is a lot more automakers coming on the scene around the world. So anything is possible.

What I would say is, it doesn't change, from our perspective, what it is that we need to do as a union. And that's continuing to advocate to make sure that we're getting as big of a piece of the EV future as we can. And it's exciting times. I think I've stressed that.

I mean, it's been difficult the last three years. And any transition is difficult. And it's going to continue to be challenging for workers, for all of the reasons that we've discussed. But it really is about making sure that there's an industry there for the future. And sometimes we've got to go through a few bumps to make sure that that happens.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: We have another question from the audience that I want to bring in here. "The EV shift seems to be giving automakers an opportunity to build new manufacturing facilities in non-union states in the US. How concerned are you about that in Canada? And what's your plan to counteract that?"

LANA PAYNE: Yes, non-union states. Well, I think we just have to keep focused on what we've been doing and what we can do here. And that is our members produce great vehicles.

They are extremely highly skilled. We have lots of things that we can sell in that regard. And they have been known to win incredible awards all the time with the work that they do.

And I would say this other thing. We are in a different dynamic, I mentioned this earlier, around the labor market. And it really is going to be about where the available workforce is, but where the skilled workforce is. You can't just assume you're going to have a ready-made labor force anymore, not with the kind of tightening labor markets that we've seen.

Yes, of course, there's the possibility of a recession this year, not the least of which is likely spurred on because of high interest rates or higher interest rates than we've seen. But that is not likely going to change the need for skilled workers. And we're going to compete on that basis because we believe our members are the folks that can sell this for us.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: Well, and in Canada, I mean, you mentioned Ontario and Quebec. But primarily, the auto footprint is in Ontario. I think it would help our audience to understand union density in the US varies by geography. What is union density like in Ontario?

LANA PAYNE: Yeah, it's-- well, I mean, obviously, if you're talking about the private sector, I think we're in like the 15%, 18% range, something like that. And overall, it's-- we're much higher when you include public-sector workers. But if you look at what we've been able to achieve because of our density in the auto sector, we have workers in non-union assembly facilities-- Toyota, Honda-- also in Ontario.

And what happens there as a kind of union-avoidance measure by the employers is when we bargain for the Detroit Three, they adopt those wages. They adopt very much the compensation as a way to keep the union out of the workplace. And so in many ways, we're also bargaining market rates for a whole ton of workers who are not in our union.

And I think that that's true of many sectors in Canada, particularly where Unifor has density. We have workers in aerospace where this would be the case, in energy, in any number of sectors where we would be setting a standard for the whole sector, and forestry being another one. So I think it's important not to get away from the fact that if your job is to want to make progress for working people, having strong union density helps not just the people who are in the union but workers who are not. And no one should lose sight of that.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: Well, and you bring up another thing that some of our questions have asked. I'm going to wrap them all up together in this one. But neither Unifor nor the UAW have made inroads into organizing these international firms.

Toyota and Honda you mentioned in Ontario both have large manufacturing presence there. They're making hybrid vehicles, in one of those factories at least. Has Unifor tried to organize these plants? We know UAW has? And is organizing workers in those plants a priority for you?

LANA PAYNE: Yeah, we continue to have a lot of dialogue with workers in both Toyota and Honda. And we're going to continue to do it. Organizing for us is a long game. It has to be.

And this auto parts facility that I just mentioned that we certified for this week, we were at that for years and put it over the top now. So you've just got to keep plugging away at this. There are any number of members-- workers in those facilities who want to be unionized. They want to have collective bargaining. They want to have democracy at work.

So we're just going to keep going because I believe eventually there's going to be a moment in time where this is going to happen. That is no doubt in my mind about that. And I think organizing the supply chain for these OEMs is part of the strategy around that as well so that there is this link among workers in the supply chain and in the assembly plant. And if we've got some of them organized, that will lead and build momentum to others.

I think it's important to understand why we need to work to have these kind of neutrality agreements. This is incredibly important that you don't have employers interfering with workers' ability to be able to vote for a union. We have antiquated-- what I would call antiquated labor laws in many parts of our country that make it very difficult to organize. Those things need to be updated.

It's part of our political agenda and our work in the union to keep pushing to make sure that we have better organizing laws across the country. And in places where we have, you do see, like we saw in Ohio, workers jumping at the chance to be able to join a union. So all of that is a work in progress. And you never give up. That's the whole point.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: Well, Lana, it's been a pleasure to talk with you. And I really enjoyed this conversation. I believe our attendees have as well. I'm going to give you one last time to tell us something that you think we should leave here with.

LANA PAYNE: I will just say, it's been a pleasure. And it's an honor to be able to enter this space for our union. And with our members in the auto sector right now, it is such an incredible moment, an extraordinary time, as I've mentioned.

But it will be a time that will have anxiety and stress for working people. And our focus as a union is to try to mitigate that as much as possible, and to make sure that workers have the good jobs that should be there in the EV future in the auto sector. And we're going to be solely focused on this. And I think it's going to be a very, very exciting time for working people in the auto sector.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: Great. Thank you for being with us. And if I could have appreciation for Lana for joining us here.

[APPLAUSE]

LANA PAYNE: Thank you. Thank you, everybody.

KRISTIN DZICZEK: Thank you. Great.

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