Navistar workers celebrate settlement
Many times when leaders of the CAW, now Unifor, came to Chatham, it was to rally former Navistar workers in their long, ongoing battle with the company.
However, Saturday’s visit to Chatham by Unifor national president Jerry Dias was to lead them in celebrating a long, hard-fought victory achieved earlier this year to secure $35 million in pension and severance owed by Navistar after closing — and since demolishing — its Richmond Street truck assembly plant that operated for more than half a century.
“Today is about justice and it’s about fairness,” Dias told those gathered at the former CAW Hall for a family barbecue.
He told The Daily News in an interview, this day was several years in the making that resulted in Navistar having to pay $35 million to workers, “our members, basically for the severance and pension shortfalls that Navistar stole from them so many years ago.”
Cathy Wiebenga, former Local 127 plant chair at Navistar, told the crowd: “After six years of legal action, the union winning all of them, we are here today … to recognize the struggles of the former workers and the victories of the union.”
She also called for a moment of silence for their union sisters and brothers who have passed away and not able “to enjoy the satisfaction of the final result.”
While the fight for severance and pension battle began in earnest after the plant was officially closed on July 28, 2011, Wiebenga pointed out the acrimonious relationship with the company began a decade earlier.
“Since 2001, the Navistar corporation has dragged this membership through turmoil, locked us out, hired goons and attempted to bring in scab labour,” she said.
Through the media, she added the company “threw mud in our faces and had our friends and neighbours questioning us, not the corporation.”
In 2009, Wiebenga said workers found themselves again on the street with no collective agreement, no closure agreement, no severance and very little pension when the company locked the doors to the plant.
“This was a planned, calculated action against the very people who took great pride in building Navistar trucks,” she said.
“It became clear to us that Navistar was not only unwilling to negotiate, they felt they had the power to change Canadian law.”