Time for Dias to Get Back to the Basics

The aggressive political rhetoric put forward by Unifor president Jerry Dias has stirred up controversy about the role of unions in politics and their responsibility to represent a membership with diverse political views, including nonpartisan journalists.

According to Unifor’s own media policy, “Journalism is essential to democracy. This is the first commandment of Canadian media. At its best, journalism holds the powerful to account, whether they are governments or private interests.” (Unifor Media Policy, July 2018)

 Jerry Dias would do well to take these words to heart. Instead, he is only paying lip service to these journalistic values as he steers the union toward an aggressive partisan political approach. His campaign includes making massive political donations using union dues.

As part of their profession, journalists are mandated to maintain nonpartisan integrity and limit their own biases while reporting political content. Dias’s actions, however, have put the dues-paying journalists in a predicament. His aggressive partisanship reflects unfairly on the journalists whose union dues are being used to make huge political donations.

While Unifor’s advocacy for Canadian media content and protecting the jobs and livelihoods of its members may be admirable, cronyism with the federal government goes far beyond a union’s mandate. Dias’s political aggression is not helping the cause of preserving traditional media and protecting the Canadian values of fair and balanced reporting.

Dias has billed himself as “Andrew Scheer’s worst nightmare” and has made it clear that he is happy to continue donating the maximum legal donation amount to politicians who align with his views.

Dias is free to use his own personal funds to donate to whatever political party he wishes, but to represent his members well, he should be working for his members’ best interests, not spending hundreds of thousands of workers’ dollars to promote his own views.

This type of union partisanship is one reason why individuals from other unions seek representation from CLAC. 

We do not believe a union should adopt a partisan approach to government relations. We engage with all parties to help shape public policy aimed at protecting our members’ interests. We encourage our members to be involved in the political process, but don’t promote one party over another. Why? We are committed to respecting diverse opinions and believe our primary responsibility is protecting our members’ jobs and improving their work-lives.

It’s time for Jerry Dias to get back to the true work of representing his members, not using their dues money to further his own political agenda.