Unifor President Jerry Dias will be joined by members from Windsor when he meets with the Ontario labour minister to talk about personal emergency leave exemptions.
The delegation, which includes workers from the Windsor Assembly Plant along with Unifor members, Ford, Honda, and Toyota, has a meeting planned with Kevin Flynn Thursday.
The auto workers say right now, the Ontario's Fair Workplaces Better Jobs Act allows workers ten days of personal emergency leave with two paid days for illness, injury, bereavement or other emergencies. Auto workers are exempt. They are only entitled to seven personal days for illness or emergencies, and three days for bereavement, none of it paid.
Dias says that is unfair.
"Employment standards should be fairly applied to all workers," he said. "Auto workers have the same need for personal emergency leave as everyone else."
In addition to calling on the Ontario government to change the legislation, Unifor also can address the issue through collective bargaining. However, Dias said thousands of auto sector workers are not covered by those agreements.
So far, the union has collected more than 5,000 signatures on a petition calling on the government to eliminate the personal emergency leave exemption for auto workers.
