Unifor to elect new president Wednesday following controversial exit of Jerry Dias

Unifor delegates will elect their new president at the national convention in downtown Toronto on Wednesday.

It's the first contested election since Unifor's founding convention in 2013 when Jerry Dias was elected president. Unifor is Canada's largest private-sector union, representing 315,000 workers in a variety of sectors, including Toronto Star employees.

Dias was set to retire this year, but retired early amid an investigation into an alleged kickback he received from a company supplying COVID-19 rapid tests. The investigation found that Dias allegedly received $50,000 in exchange for promoting those tests to Unifor employers, and gave half the sum to his then assistant Chris MacDonald, who filed a complaint with the union.

Another former Dias assistant Scott Doherty is running for president, as are the current secretary-treasurer Lana Payne and the president of Windsor-based Unifor Local 444 Dave Cassidy.

The kickback scandal caused division among the National Executive Board, which was further disrupted by Payne's late-in-the-game decision to run for president. Payne, who had a key role in handling the investigation fallout, has been criticized for using the situation to benefit her campaign, an accusation she denies.

After they were officially nominated by supporters, the three candidates gave speeches Tuesday afternoon, cheered on by the camps in their respective campaign T-shirts.

Cassidy, who spoke first, described himself as a trailblazer for running without an official endorsement, saying he paved the road" for the unprecedented three-candidate election. His platform is focused on putting members first and prioritizing the membership over politics. In his speech he promised a forensic audit" of Unifor.

There are people out there who don't trust us, and we need to fix that."

Doherty, who was originally endorsed by Dias and the National Executive Board before giving up the endorsement when Payne decided to run, cut a calmer figure than the impassioned Cassidy. A union member since he was 18 years old, Doherty spoke about growing the union, strengthening bargaining, and keeping a united front.

We need to work harder than we ever have before to organize workers in unison," he said.

Payne spoke last, hitting home her main campaign points on transparency and accountability. She talked of seizing the current moment in the labour movement, one marked by increased worker unrest amid inflation and high corporate profits.

We have an organizing moment that we have been building for our entire lifetime."

Based on public endorsements by union locals, Payne has an edge over Doherty, Brock University labour studies professor Larry Savage told the Star on Monday, while Cassidy likely doesn't have the support to win. But those endorsements only represent about a third of the union's locals, and so heading into Wednesday, the election results are still not certain.

A candidate needs 51 per cent of the vote to win. If that is not achieved, a runoff ballot will be held between the top two candidates.

With files from Sara Mojtehedzadeh