UNIFOR President Jerry Dias in Toronto on May 8, 2019. CHRIS HELGREN/Reuters
As Unifor seeks to replace its embattled former president, Jerry Dias, a furious debate has emerged between current and former members over the expense accounts of some of its top executives. to the organization, which is Canada’s largest private sector union.
Documents obtained by The Globe and Mail – which have also circulated among union members and staff, and on social media – show that several key union figures, including Mr. Days, they spent hundreds of thousands of dollars of Unifor’s money annually. activated travel, hotel and other union related expenses.
The content of the documents has sparked a mix of outrage and skepticism from former and current union members, with some saying the information was leaked for political purposes ahead of a key election that will determine Mr. Dias as national president. Others in Unifor’s ranks are calling for greater accountability regarding the expense accounts of senior union executives.
Financial integrity is a key issue in the union’s election, given the circumstances surrounding Mr. Dias’ departure: an ethics scandal over an improper payment he allegedly received from a vendor. The outcome of the race will be determined at the union’s convention, which begins on August 8.
The documents show a breakdown of expenses incurred by top union leaders between 2018 and 2021, including items such as air and rail travel, hotel stays and amounts spent on out-of-office meetings.
The expenses incurred by Mr. Days and 16 more people, including his longtime assistant Scott Doherty and union secretary-treasurer Lana Payne. Both of us Mr. Doherty and Mrs. Payne are in the running to replace Mr. Dias.
Collectively, those 17 union leaders, regional directors and their assistants spent $1.79 million in 2018 and $1.84 million in 2019 on work-related expenses, including travel, the documents show. In 2020, that number dropped to $710,000, and in 2021 it dropped to $388,000.
It seems that Mr. Dias was one of the most worn out members of the union. Documents show he incurred hundreds of thousands of dollars in travel, hotel and other expenses annually.
According to the documents, in 2018 Mr. Dias claimed nearly $317,000 in expenses, which consisted of travel and lodging expenses incurred during business trips, parking expenses, car insurance and maintenance expenses, taxi fares, meeting-related expenses, and Mobile Phone.
In 2019, Mr. Dias claimed approximately $280,000 in expenses. During the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021, which required a sharp reduction in travel, their expenses dropped to $143,000 and $109,000 respectively.
In an emailed statement, Mr. Dias, Tom Curry, managing partner of Bay Street law firm Lenczner Slaght LLP, said all of his client’s expenses were “properly approved” by Unifor’s secretary-treasurer, according to the union’s criteria . policies
“No member of the National Executive Council ever raised concerns about these expenses,” wrote Mr. Curry. “The fact that they were leaked and editorialized weeks before the election to replace Mr. Dias suggests that this is not an exercise in accountability but a desperate attempt to profit politically from the disparagement of Mr. Dias.”
Mr. Dias was once a respected face in Canada’s labor movement, with a reputation for being a tough negotiator. The ethics scandal that involved him became public later an internal investigation found that it had violated Unifor’s constitution by accepting a $50,000 gift from a rapid COVID-19 test provider, allegedly in exchange for promoting the company’s tests to union members.
In March, days before the union announced that Mr. Dias was under investigation, he abruptly announced his retirement, citing health problems. He is also being investigated by the Toronto Police Service’s financial crimes unit for allegedly receiving the $50,000.
A union hearing was scheduled on the conduct of Mr. Days for April, but it was postponed due to his health. Earlier this year, he told unions and the public that he had checked into a rehab facility after months of uncontrolled use of painkillers, sleeping pills and alcohol to treat a sciatic nerve problem.
One of the other biggest spenders, according to the documents, is Mr. Doherty, who is broadly responsible for Unifor’s members in the energy, forestry, rail and manufacturing sectors.
In 2018, Mr. Doherty claimed approximately $282,000 in expenses. Among them were $97,000 for air and rail travel, $73,000 for hotel stays and $70,000 for “meeting expenses.”
A year later, in 2019, Mr Doherty’s annual expenses rose to $315,000. About $114,000 was spent on air and rail travel, while nearly $67,000 was spent on hotel stays. According to the documents, Mr Doherty’s expenses fell to $150,000 and $72,000 for 2020 and 2021, respectively, due mainly to a decrease in travel and hotel costs.
According to two sources with knowledge of union operations, union leaders and their aides would often travel business class if they were going abroad, and their hotel stays were usually at five-star Sheraton or Fairmont hotels.
The Globe is not identifying the sources because they were not authorized to speak publicly about internal union affairs.
The lawyer of Mr. Days, Mr. Curry said hotel decisions were made in accordance with Unifor’s travel policy, which prioritized those with Unifor membership, such as the Fairmont chain. He added that Mr. Dias “received periodic updates,” but those were provided at no cost to Unifor members.
Mr. Doherty did not specifically respond to questions about whether he traveled business class or stayed in luxury hotels with union funds. But in a lengthy email response to The Globe, he expressed outrage at the leak, saying the documents were made public for “political reasons.”
“Not once in the past three years have my expenses been cited or reimbursed by Unifor’s finance department, which is overseen by the national secretary-treasurer,” wrote Mr. Doherty. He added that over the past three years he has taken nearly 300 flights to negotiating sessions, meetings, solidarity actions and conferences around the country, and spent 275 nights in hotels.
“I spent 430 breakfast, lunch or dinner meetings with members, employers, committees, staff and leadership advocating for better working conditions, better collective agreements and better lives for our members,” his statement said.
Ms. Payne responded on behalf of Unifor to questions about the union’s travel and accommodation policies. In an email, he said the union’s practice is to fly economy class domestically, but international flight reservations can range from economy class to business class “depending on the length of the flight and the availability of seats”.
Ms. Payne also said that Unifor leadership and staff often stay at hotels that employ Unifor members, but that this is not always possible due to a hotel’s location or lack of access to a required meeting space. “If a hotel represented by Unifor is not available, priority is given to other unionized hotels,” he added.
The race to elect the next leader of Unifor has turned into a controversy, with the two main candidates, Mr Doherty and Ms Payne, campaigning aggressively to win the support of several local unions ahead of the election in August in Toronto.
The expense leak prompted Ms. Payne, the union’s secretary-treasurer and current de facto president, to issue an internal email addressing the issue on July 6. The email, which Ms. Payne told The Globe that most of the expenses were “within the limits and justified by the union obligations required of senior officials and staff,” but that some of them “raised questions and concerns.”
He added that there must be “stronger approval processes to monitor expenditure”.
Ms. Payne is campaigning on a platform of accountability. He told The Globe that there is an urgent need to adopt new oversight mechanisms when it comes to the expense accounts belonging to members of the union’s National Executive Board.
She has also said that, as secretary-treasurer, she is in charge of approving personnel expenses, except for those of the president’s assistants. Those approvals, he said, come directly from the president.
Ms. Payne’s annual expenses averaged $100,000 in 2018 and 2019. That number dropped to about $40,000 in 2020 and 2021. She said she flies economy class domestically, but did not say specifically if you also do it on international flights.
Brock University professor and labor relations expert Larry Savage said it’s no surprise that the nation’s largest private sector union is spending large amounts of money on things like travel, because unions need substantial resources to function effectively.
What’s more interesting, he said, is the disparity between officials in the same union and the reasons for those disparities.
“There may be a perfectly sound explanation, but members will certainly want to know why certain people spend more than others,” he said.
Internal union tensions have continued this week. Mr Doherty posted a message on his Facebook page on Wednesday in which he condemned the leak of expenses and noted that other leaked confidential documents related to his role in the investigation of Mr. Days were in “exclusive possession of the office of the national secretary-treasurer.” “
Unifor has approximately 315,000 members nationwide, including some Globe and Mail employees. Most of the union’s income comes from union dues paid by members. In 2020, according to publicly available financial statements, the union collected approximately $104 million in union dues, which represented 86 percent of its overall revenue. In 2019, the union…