You obviously have a much better feel for what sounds right than I do, but I wonder if you could use any of these: moderador, jefe, encargado.

Chairperson is just a PC way of saying chairman. (I'm just mentioning it, because a search on wordreference turns up quite a bit more for "chairman" than for "chairperson.") Suggestions there include moderador/a, but I'm not sure if that fits your context.

(Sorry, didn´t see James´response before posting mine.)

I guess then that "presidente" or "jefe" is what I should use. I don't have the sentence here at work, but it refers to a person being in charge of the manufacturing unit.

A lo mejor jefe de departamento'

This is difficult because unions have their own way of talking . . . jargon, you might say.

Heidita said:

A lo mejor jefe de departamento?

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Yes Natasha. My wife is struggling with this contract, which is full of ........ these terms and there is not translation for them. We are just trying to understand what they want to say and put it in our own words. It's not easy. A lot of legal stuff there so you have to be very careful.

Natasha said:

This is difficult because unions have their own way of talking . . . jargon, you might say.

Heidita said:

A lo mejor jefe de departamento?

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If it makes you feel any better, Guillermo, "unit chairperson" sounds odd to my ear as well. A person usually chairs a committee, an organization, a faculty, etc., but not a manufacturing unit. Sounds rather pompous to me. If this person's job is to supervise the unit, then I would call him or her a supervisor, and if the job were to represent the unit in labor negotiations, then I would use "representative."

But as Natasha says, this is probably jargon, and it was probably coined by people who don't write English for a living.

Have you decided upon the best translation for "unit"? That's probably the key word here. "Unit Chairperson" kind of sounds like legalese which is intended to be as broad as possible. (Unit could conceivably be a department, a division, or just about any other "building block" within the company. It's kind of going to depend upon the org chart of the company in question.)

Not that it will help Guillermo, but it just occurred to me why chairperson is unsuitable in this context. The word originally referred to an actual chair (silla) that was occupied by the person presiding over a sit-down meeting of some kind. There were several or many other chairs for the other members, but this special chair was reserved for the leader of the group. Since a manufacturing unit does not sit around a table, it is incongruous to call its leader a chairperson.

Natasha said:

Chairperson is just a PC way of saying chairman.
Hear! Hear! My mother (who was for a number of years the chairman of the English Department at a local university) always referred to herself (and never objected to the reference by others) as the department "chairman".

Sorry if I pointed everybody in the wrong direction. It is the Unit Chairperson of the Union. Here is the complete paragraph:
"The Company shall post on the bulletin board an up-to-date seniority list not later than five (5) days after each four (4) month period. A copy of such list shall be furnished the Unit Chairperson of the Union. In the event two or more employees have the same seniority date, seniority among those employees for all purposes of this Agreement shall be determined by drawing names of the employees involved. Such drawing shall be conducted by the Vice-President of the Company and in the presence of the Unit Chairperson of the Local. "

That sounds even funnier. I would have just said the Chairman of the Local Union (Chapter).

Guillermo said:

Sorry if I pointed everybody in the wrong direction. It is the furnished the Unit Chairperson of the Union. Here is the complete paragraph:"The Company shall post on the bulletin board an up-to-date seniority list not later than five (5) days after each four (4) month period. A copy of such list shall be furnished the Unit Chairperson of the Union. In the event two or more employees have the same seniority date, seniority among those employees for all purposes of this Agreement shall be determined by drawing names of the employees involved. Such drawing shall be conducted by the Vice-President of the Company and in the presence of the Unit Chairperson of the Local. "

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