The Canadian Auto Workers union and the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union will now be known as Unifor.
The two former separate entities unveiled its new name and logo at a media conference in Toronto Thursday. The merger of CAW and CEP into Unifor makes it the largest private sector union in Canada, representing nearly 300,000 workers in more than 20 sectors.
The merger is expected to become official once the constitution is finished during the Labour Day weekend.
Marvin Pupeza, now a national representative for Unifor, said the new name and logo was a closely guarded secret since the initiative started 19 months ago. Although he liked the new logo and name, he admitted it was going to take some time to get use to going by Unifor.
“It’s a new name, logo and union,” he said. “We’re doing something that no other union that I’m aware of has ever done before and that is redefining what a membership within the union is. That’s going to allow student groups, and underemployed people for example to become part of this new union."
He said the new union is going to be adaptable to any situation and continuously change in order to face any situation.
When it comes to seniority, Pupeza explained that it is done through the union’s collective agreement and the unions coming together wont impact it.
But both CAW and CEP have national representatives in the city.
Pupeza said it will be up to the union to decide how many national representatives they want in Thunder Bay.
“Retirement is always a possibility,” he said. “I’ve been at this for 32 years and it is probably time for me to slide out and let some of this youth slide in.”
Andy Savela , a representative for CAW, said the union’s new mandate is to represent all workers who need representation. He suspected the new union will represent about 6,500 active workers in the region.
Given the huge size of the Unifor, he added that local unions won’t lose their identities.
“We have strong local unions,” he said. “Our local unions in all our workplaces have elected people and they take the responsibility to negotiate collective agreements, enforce it and represent their members. Our union is always there to provide support for them to do that. Everyone will still have their identity. We’ll just belong to a big organization.”
