Unifor welcomes tariff countermeasures
Unifor president Lana Payne stated that the union has long called for Canada to fight back against U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs designed to target Canada's industrial base and force concessions.
Payne called the Canadian counter-tariffs a good first response, but stated that action is needed at home to keep workers on the job by fast-tracking procurement dollars. "We need to take action at home to keep workers on the job by fast-tracking procurement dollars, implementing national industrial strategies, and calling on corporate Canada to step up and Buy Canadian," Payne said in a press release.
The federal government announced dollar-for-dollar counter-tariffs on $27.6 billion worth of U.S. goods along with several changes to Employment Insurance (EI).
The new EI measures include extending the waiver of the one-week waiting period and allowing workers to receive benefits without first using up separation payments through October 2027. The federal program extends the Work-Sharing Program to March 2027 and provides an additional 20 weeks of EI for long-serving workers only through June 2027. Additional rules allow workers who voluntarily leave their jobs to collect EI without penalty and help connect unemployed and underemployed workers with hiring major projects.
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However, the union says these measures fall short of worker needs because the government failed to address major gaps in the EI system. These unaddressed issues include lowering qualifying hours for part-time, part-year, seasonal and precarious workers, improving EI benefit rates or introducing a minimum benefit, and broadly extending benefit durations beyond the extra 20 weeks limited to long-serving staff.
Unifor Quebec director Daniel Cloutier stated that workers are being asked to absorb the economic shock of an unprovoked trade war. Cloutier noted, "Workers need income security they can count on, not a patchwork of measures that expires when the next deadline passes. As this trade war continues, the federal government must be ready to go further to protect workers, support communities and ensure people are not left carrying the cost of this escalating fight."
Unifor is the largest private sector union in Canada, representing 320,000 workers across every major area of the economy while advocating for equality, social justice and progressive change.
