Unifor President Jerry Diaz said the union plans to hold a vote allowing Toyota workers in Canadian plants to join Unifor.

Unifor, the giant Canadian labor organization seeking to organize workers at Toyota’s assembly plants in Ontario, expects to have the employees of the Japanese automaker vote on whether to join the union sooner rather than later.

A successful vote would be a major coup for Unifor, which recently absorbed the Canadian Auto Workers Union. The CAW had long struggled and failed to organize the many so-called “transplant” assembly lines in Canada. It might also provide some much-needed momentum for the Detroit-based United Auto Workers Union which has been able to rally workers at foreign-owned assembly plants in the U.S.

Unifor President Jerry Diaz told reporters after a speech at the UAW convention in Detroit that the Canadian labor group has collected more than 3,000 cards from Toyota employees across Ontario asking to join Uniifor. The organization is an amalgam of the old Canadian Auto Workers and several other Canadian unions, including communication and paper workers.

Unifor also has succeeded in obtaining a complete list of Toyota employees in Ontario, which includes job titles and the location of where they work. Toyota has used jurisdictional issues to deflect earlier drives by the CAW. Having the list makes it easier for the Canadian union to prepare its strategy in the fight with Toyota, which has openly opposed the union effort. Diaz said.

Toyota employs nearly 7,500 at plants in Woodstock and Cambridge, Ontario, short drives from the U.S. border.

Diaz put in an appearance at the UAW’s convention during which the American union elected a new president, ex-Marine Dennis Williams. He will face some significant challengers, including the drive to organize the American transplants. The UAW had expected to win a push at the new Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, only to lose in a bitter fight that saw a number of influential state politicians weigh in against the union.

The UAW believes it can try again at VW, in large part due to the support it has been getting from the maker’s union back in Germany. A second failure would make it even more difficult to go after the plants run by other foreign manufacturers, such as Toyota, Nissan and Mercedes-Benz.

(UAW elects Williams president at convention in Detroit. For more, Click Here.)

During his speech to the UAW convention, Unifor President Diaz said the Canadian labor group was created last year so Canadian workers could go on the offensive to win better wages and benefits. “It was designed to play offense not defense,” he said, adding that it intends to push back against corporate influence and power grabs.

(Click Here for details about GM’s plans to release report results.)

One area in which Unifor plans to play offense is in the auto parts sector. Workers gave up wages and benefits during the recession, he noted.  But key suppliers such as Lear, Johnson Controls and TRW are now making handsome profits and if their top executives can receive major salary increases, Diaz declared “then our members deserve a pay increase at the bargaining table.”

(To see more about Tesla’s CEO plans for the next few years, Click Here.)

Unifor will open contract talks this summer with Johnson Controls, which is threatening to close one of its two plants in Canada.  If JCI wants labor peace in Canada, it will have to reverse the closing order, Diaz warned.

“We’ll shut down General Motors if they put our members out of work,” threatened Diaz, whose father belonged to the UAW.

The Johnson Controls plant feeds seat parts to the GM plant in Oshawa, Ontario. outside of Toronto, so a strike at the facility could have a quick and serious impact on the automaker.