■ On strike for four weeks, De Havilland employees rallied Tuesday outside the aircraft manufacturer’s Downsview facility.
Unifor presses companies to return to bargaining table with fair agreement
Union leader Jerry Dias returned to the north Toronto aircraft manufacturing plant where he worked almost 45 years ago to press owner De Havilland into ending an ongoing labour dispute on Tuesday.
As striking workers rallied outside the Downsview plant, Unifor’s national president called on De Havilland Canada and its parent company Longview Aviation Capital Corp. to return to the bargaining table with an agreement that is fair to staff and vowed that he will keep fighting for employee rights.
“This plant is a part of who we all are because I was hired here with 1,500 other people for the Dash 7 program,” said Dias, who in 1987 was president of one of the local units representing the workers he spoke to and whose father held the position before him.
“This is personal because you trusted me … and I’ll be damned if I am going to let you down today.”
Dias was pledging his support to 700 workers represented by
Unifor Local 673 and 112, who have been on strike since July 27 over the future location of the Dash 8 turboprop program.
De Havilland told workers this year that it would no longer produce new Q400 aircraft at the Downsview facility beyond currently confirmed orders, and said two years ago that work will end at the site once lease agreements for the land expire.
The union has since been pushing De Havilland to commit to making the Dash 8 somewhere in the Greater Toronto Area when production resumes.
The company has refused to negotiate any scope clauses that would limit production to somewhere in the GTA and Dias has said he expects it to move to Alberta.
De Havilland Canada spokesperson Philippa King said the company wants to create a “sustainable, long-term future for the Dash 8,” but requires “fundamental change” because Bombardier sold the Downsview site in 2018, putting the manufacturing at the site on “borrowed time.”
“Despite the near-term challenges, de Havilland Canada maintains an optimistic outlook on its future and the future of Dash 8 program, and has stated
publicly that it intends for the company to be ready to meet new aircraft demand as the industry recovers,” she wrote in an email.
“However, the company cannot and will not rush to a decision on future production location, nor negotiate a site plan in public.”
But Ontario Premier Doug Ford was already putting public pressure on the company during a Tuesday visit to an Alstom facility in Thunder Bay, Ont.
Ford said he is disappointed that the Dash 8 program may leave because the provincial government has spent hundreds of millions on De Havilland and aircraft production.
“All of a sudden this big billionaire comes along and says, ‘I’m taking (Dash 8 production) out of Toronto, and taking it out of Ontario, and we’re shipping it to another province just because the billionaire lives in
that province,” said Ford in a reference to De Havilland owner Sherry Brydson, a member of the Thomson family.
“They take the money and then they leave. I think it’s disgusting. We have to fight.”
The aviation industry has been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic because many are forgoing travelling. Airlines were forced to ground planes for much of last year and early this year, when COVID-19 cases were high.
It has had a trickle-down effect on sales for aircraft manufacturers like De Havilland.
“When it comes to pinching the nerve that connects their wallet to their brain, we are not in a good situation,” Dias said.
The stakes are high for the company’s workers, who want to hold onto their jobs and chanted “No Dash, no deal” during the rally.