Lana Payne smashes through the glass factory ceiling

Unifor’s third tri-annual national congress is on right now in Toronto. We’re on day four of five. With no wifi in the convention hall, rather than starting a revolution, I’ve been silently brooding on Twitter, hoping to not hit my data limit for the month. But I digress …

In the shadow of Jerry Dias’ corruption and subsequent disapearance from public life, this convention has had only one Main Event: a three-way election between Dias acolyte Scott Doherty, former Secretary-Treasurer Lana Payne and Unifor Local 444 president Dave Cassidy. With more than 60% of the votes on the second ballot, Lana Payne became the first woman to lead a national, private sector industrial union in Canada (and probably in North America but I’m not going to verify that, so I’ll just leave this in brackets in case I am wrong).

I’ve known Lana for a long time, just like pretty much any woman union activist, regardless of what union they’re in and in which province they’re active. Her victory was far from secured, however — the Doherty campaign relied on intimidation tactics and shows of force to convince people to vote for him. That may have worked in the old days of the CAW but this past week, it came across as tacky and annoying.

Lana was given a mandate to continue the work that she was forced to start in the aftermath of Dias’ corruption — continue to clean up the union’s finances, implement new financial controls and transparency measures, and, as she mentioned may times, take advantage of the moment of union support and organizing to grow Unifor’s membership.

For me, I’ll be watching a few things from Lana and her new administration (which does not include her team’s Ontario director candidate Dayle Steadman, who was the only member of the team to lose, and she lost to Naureen Rizvi.)

1. At what point do the knives come out for Lana? They will — this was an acrymonious election and the Doherty team tried to argue that she managed the Dias crisis in such a way that she could become president. Women, nonbinary folks (and some men!) will recognize this trope. Doherty’s supporters were loud (obnoxious, in some cases) and I doubt that this victory will convince them to slink back to the golf course or, in Doherty’s case, his condo in Florida in the community that him and Dias co-occupy. There will be fuckery, but what kind of fuckery is, of course, up in the air.

2. How does Lana, through her office, take advantage of this moment of heightened excitement about labour organizing? Will we see more radical tactics? More creative organizing campaigns? Will her efforts be stymied? Or was it all talk? I have a personal stake in this as my union, the Canadian Freelance Union is a community chapter of Unifor and we rely heavily on support from the union. But more than that, we need to radically expand our work and that will require direction from the top. À suivre.

3. Does Lana take steps to bring Unifor back into the CLC? Aside from Unifor-Québec, Unifor has been outside the house of labour for many years now. As a former provincial federation president, it would make sense that she would want to see the union return to the CLC and it’s various provincial and local bodies. With Bea Bruske leading the CLC, the pissing matches of yore are not likely to be repeated (not that ladies can’t get into pissing matches, but these two women aren’t exactly the type). There’s a lot of potential in them working together …

4. Unifor workers work for Canada’s biggest and absolutely most shit employers: Bell, Air Canada, Loblaw, Rogers; and in Canada’s most important industries: manufacturing, energy, forestry, transportation etc. Will Lana be able to build the confrontation necessary to confront these giants? Certainly the rhetoric from this week says that not only is she ready, but so too are delegates. But will they?

5. There was a comment made at one point from the campaign that was something like “no more backroom deals with employers.” As this kind of thing is usually invisible to average people, will ending these kinds of tactics be something that we can see the impact of? Will it push the union to be more militant? I can only hope.

Lana’s victory is historic. There were so many union sisters in tears at the moment of the vote. A movement that is far-too-often still hostile to everyone who is not a man (and hostile to a certain kind of man), Lana’s victory signals that change is not just possible, but it’s happening. It’s a process. It’s ongoing … and so, what happens next?