Unifor national president Jerry Dias.Tijana Martin/The Canadian Press
Union boss Jerry Dias – national president of Unifor, the largest private sector union in Canada – announced Wednesday evening that he is on medical leave and will temporarily hand over the reins of his office to the union’s senior leadership team.
Mr. Dias made the surprise announcement on Twitter, writing that his account would be “a little quiet for a while” as he was “taking time off to deal with some health issues”.
“I have every confidence the Unifor leadership and staff will continue the important work of the union in my absence,” he added in the tweet.
Mr. Dias has been on medical leave since Feb. 6, according to an internal memo sent to Unifor local units and the union’s staff obtained by The Globe and Mail.
“Jerry did not make the decision to take this leave easily and we hope that you will respect his privacy. While on leave, Jerry will not be carrying out the responsibilities of the office of president,” the memo read. It was signed by Lana Payne, currently the highest-ranking officer at Unifor and the union’s national treasurer.
Ms. Payne wrote she would work with the union’s elected leadership team, consisting of various provincial directors, including Quebec director Renaud Gagné and Ontario regional director Naureen Rizvi, in accordance with Unifor’s constitution.
Unifor represents approximately 315,000 Canadian workers across 29 different sectors (including employees of The Globe). Mr. Dias was elected national president of Unifor after the 2013 merger between the Canadian Auto Workers union and the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada.
Last December, Ontario Premier Doug Ford tapped the high-profile union leader to head the province’s Council on U.S. Trade and Industry Competitiveness, a task force set up to navigate American protectionist measures toward the auto industry and its impact on Canadian jobs. Working alongside Mr. Ford was a sharp departure from the sentiment Mr. Dias expressed toward the Premier in 2018, when he uttered an expletive to Mr. Ford in a televised speech.
Mr. Dias has been criticized by some on the left for publicly siding with Mr. Ford on a number of issues, including standing alongside him during an announcement last November that Ontario would raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour. Ontario’s Conservative government had frozen minimum wage increases when they took office in 2018.
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