Nearly 200 people gathered Sunday afternoon for a union rally in support of Toyota employees.

The event, held in Kitchener, was organized by the Canadian Union of Public Employees.

“I am not afraid to speak my mind, I’m not afraid to tell people how I really feel, and how I feel is we don't have any employee representation,” says Steven Wallwork, a rail yard employee in Woodstock.

The rally comes as Unifor, CUPE’s sister union, pushes to represent the roughly 7,000 Toyota employees split between the Cambridge and Woodstock plants.

It expects to make an official bid in the next few months. 

“People are looking at things and they’re asking very important questions. The questions that they’re asking lead me to believe that they’re actually thinking about this. It’s not like it was in the past,” says Lee Sperduti, a team leader at the Cambridge plant.

John Aman, Unifor’s director of organizing, says more than 3,000 workers between the two plants have signed membership cards – meaning they’ve expressed interest in unionization.

According to Aman, that represents about 40 per cent of all employees at the two plants – the threshold at which a certification vote can occur.

That’s good news for some workers who spoke to CTV News at Sunday’s rally.

“I know several women who’ve worked there who went on mat leave and the company tried to say that time did not count toward seniority,” said Patti Shipway, a worker at the Cambridge plant. “I know two of them who had to fight through human rights to get that time back and get the raises they would have had and the wages they would have had in that time.”

In an email to CTV News, Toyota Canada says it doesn’t see the need for a union but doesn’t have any issue with Unifor’s involvement at the plant thus far.

“Toyota and its team members have been successful without a union for more than 25 years,” the company says.

“Unifor is free to accept support from whomever they please.”

Unifor, which represents some CTV Kitchener employees, formed last year, when the Canadian Auto workers Union and the Communication, Energy and Paper Workers Union amalgamated.