Category: Labour Links

Solidarity with MUNACA’s members and their just demands

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By admin, October 11, 2011 1:39 pm

252 Bloor Street West, Room 8-104

Toronto, ON M5S 1V6

(416) 978-2403; cupe3907@gmail.com

September 29, 2011

Kevin Whittaker, President

McGill University Non-Academic Certified Association

L’ Association Accreditee du Personnel Non Enseignant de l’Universite McGill

3483 Peel Street

Montreal, QC

H3A 1W7

Re: Solidarity with MUNACA’s members and their just demands

Dear Brother Kevin:

The members of CUPE Local 3907 at the University of Toronto stand in solidarity with the members of McGill University Non-Academic Certified Association (MUNACA) and their strike action. Your strike to achieve internal and external equity with other similarly-placed workers in your workplace as well as with employees in other postsecondary educational institutions in Montreal is both inspiring and encouraging to our local.

In going out on strike, MUNACA is valiantly attempting to bring the Employer’s behavior in line with its expressed principles. In the terms of reference of the Principal’s Task Force on Diversity, Excellence and Community Engagement, the Employer asserts, “We will evaluate our achievement regularly and rigorously, both against our own previous performance and against that of our peers.” The practice of evaluating its operation against that of other comparator organizations is a long established way of ensuring that McGill University meets or exceeds the best practices in the university sector.

Therefore, the Employer should not treat your demands for a wage scale, substantive involvement in decisions about your members’ pension plan and workplace benefits, which are already enjoyed by workers in comparable organizations, as unreasonable and unprecedented. Internal and external equity has long been used in industrial relations to determine the terms and conditions of employment for workers and even administrators in higher education institutions.

The Principal’s Task Force highlights diversity of staff or employment equity as a major concern. If the Employer has concerns about seniority considerations frustrating the need to remove structural racist and other discriminatory barriers in fairly representing equity-seekers throughout the job classifications system, it should see MUNACA as partner and not a liability to this necessary goal. Any union that is committed to the principle of an “Injury to one is an injury to all” is going to work to ensure that equity-seekers are fairly and rapidly represented in all job categories.

CUPE Local 3907 applauds the determination of your members in standing up for fairness and equity in the workplace. Please rest assured that our members are solidly behind your strike action. A cheque is attached to this letter and it represents a donation from CUPE Local 3907 to MUNACA’s strike fund.

In solidarity,

Cristina Guerrero, Chair External Yongfang Jia, Chair Internal

Cc: Dr. Heather Munroe-Blum, Principal and Vice-Chancellor, McGill University

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Group wants level employment playing field

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By admin, October 6, 2011 3:44 pm

http://www.thecaribbeancamera.com/news/5290-js-1

Posted on Wednesday October 05, 2011

By Jasminee Sahoye

The local chapter of an organisation that represents Africans around the world wants to see a better and more comprehensive employment equity legislation in Ontario.

The Network for Pan-Afrikan Solidarity (Toronto) is calling on the three major political parties to support a comprehensive employment equity legislation so as to create a level employment playing field for racialized workers.

It says racialized workers are not experiencing the glass ceiling. “We are faced with the concrete ceiling or steel door.”

The organization says there are no anti-racist planks in the individual electoral platform of Ontario’s three major political parties and it wants to communicate its strong objection to what it describes as “the race-baiting of Tim Hudak on the question of racist employment barriers” and initiatives to address this matter.

“Our organization has been following the responses to Progressive Conservative party leader Tim Hudak’s comment about “foreign workers” being given privileged access to job opportunities. Was he implicitly appealing to white voters who have Ontario or Canada as their place of birth? The various criticisms of Hudak’s statement have largely failed in addressing the real issue about race and access to jobs in the province.”

The organization says instead of calling for an apology or a retraction of the racially offensive statement from Hudak, critics ought to be calling for the inclusion of a comprehensive employment equity legislation plank in the respective platforms of the three major parties. “Racialized workers are confronted by discriminatory employment barriers in the workplaces across the province of Ontario and the rest of Canada. In the absence of employment equity legislation with targets and enforceable accountability measures, it will be decades before these workers are fairly represented across the job classifications system in the private, public and not-for-profit sectors in Ontario. “

The organization added that the federal government with an employment equity legislation covering the national civil service has failed in equitably hiring and promoting racialized workers.

“In 2010, racialized workers had a national workforce availability (WFA) figure of 12.4 per cent, but only 9.8 per cent of them were employees of the national government. It was very instructive that of the four employment equity designated groups (women, racialized workers, people with disabilities and Aboriginals),racialized workers were the only underrepresented group. The other groups were overrepresented as federal employees based on their respective WFA figures,” the Network of Pan Afrikan Solidarity said.

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Race, Oppositional Politics, and the Challenges of Post-9/11 Mass Movement-Building Spaces

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By admin, September 16, 2011 2:03 pm

Race, Oppositional Politics, and the Challenges of Post-9/11 Mass Movement-Building Spaces

Ajamu Nangwaya

http://www.anarchist-developments.org/index.php/adcs/article/view/44

Abstract

In the absence of a critical race analysis that is aimed at informing and shaping political practice in the United States, the prospect for revolutionary renewal and movement building will not be able to reach its full potential in the post-9/11 period and beyond. This paper examines the race-informed developments of the 9/11 attacks, the racial politics of reparations, the spring 2006 immigrant rights protests, and the February/March 2011 protest action in Madison, Wisconsin, for illustration. In addition, it interrogates the issues of race and racism within the labour movement and the wider American society, and the manner in which they are deployed to prevent the emergence of an anti-oppression collective consciousness and a broad-based political movement.

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Migrant workers demand better conditions on community reality tour

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By admin, September 8, 2011 7:02 pm

http://www.stcatharinesstandard.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=3285720

By KARENA WALTER Standard Staff

Posted 3 days ago

The dozens of migrant workers who rallied in Niagara this weekend took an enormous risk in doing so, organizers of a “solidarity caravan” said Sunday.

Many workers fear retribution or even deportation if their employers discover they have been rallying for better conditions, members of Justice for Migrant Workers said.

“It’s a tremendous risk they’re taking,” said organizer Chris Ramsaroop.

About 100 southwestern Ontario migrant workers from Guatemala, Jamaica, the Philippines and Thailand, among other countries, gathered at the British Methodist Episcopal Church on Geneva St. in St. Catharines on Sunday.

They are among thousands of workers who come to Canada to fill labour shortages through Seasonal Agricultural Worker and Temporary Foreign Worker Programs.

The church was the first stop on a tour for the group whose members came on buses from as far away as Leamington and Tillsonburg.

“You’re all here to demand justice and call for rights in Canada,” Ramsaroop said to applause outside the church. “Congratulations for the risk you’re taking to stand up for your rights.”

The “solidarity caravan” is making stops along the Underground Railroad to raise questions about whether those communities still represent freedom for all or oppression for migrant workers.

Ramsaroop said some workers are fearful of rallying in their workplace communities, but will take action elsewhere.

One of those workers who travelled from Tillsonburg said there’s no way to refuse unsafe work with chemicals for fear of being sent home.

“If you deny work, you can be penalized and lose your job,” he said.

And losing his job would mean being sent back to Trinidad, where the pay is less.

He has spent eight months every year for the last 13 years working in Canada without his family for that paycheque.

He said he doesn’t want the programs shut down, but added he shouldn’t have to live in a home with rats or have insufficient medical care.

Canadians, he said, have no idea what takes place behind the scenes.

“You get these nice fruits, farming helps develop the country, but we’d like to be treated like human beings,” he said.

Tzazna Miranda, an organizer from Justice for Migrant Workers, said health and safety is a big issue with workers using pesticides and machinery without proper training. Gender and racial discrimination, labour laws and the ease with which someone can be deported are also concerns.

“The problem is there is very little enforcement. It doesn’t matter what the law is if nothing’s enforcing it,” Miranda said.

“We don’t want to close the program, but we want it to properly work.”

Filipino Gina Bahiwal, an organizer and agricultural packer in Leamington, said she hoped the caravan would raise awareness and push the government to protect migrant workers from abuses.

She said she had to find a new employer or go home after she was accused of organizing a union.

“For three years I am here,” she said. “I see there is no protection for migrant workers and there is injustices.”

Later on Sunday, the caravan made stops in Virgil and Niagara-on-the-Lake.

kwalter@stcatharinesstandard.ca

Class and Class Struggle Trade Unionism, Community, Equity Issues, Labour Links, Racial Justice and Anti-Racism

Migrant workers rallying for their rights

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By admin, September 8, 2011 1:42 pm

Ajamu Nangway, a PhD student in adult education at the University of Toronto, handed out pamphlets along Queen Street to raise awareness about issues migrant workers face each summer when they come to work in Canada.

Migrant workers rallying for their rights

By Sarah Ferguson

Posted 19 hours ago

http://www.niagaraadvance.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=3288847

While many residents spent their Labour Day weekend enjoying the last bit of summer, migrant works marched down Queen Street on Sunday for better wages and rights.

About 100 farm workers and supporters took part in the caravan, says Chris Ramsaroop, organizer of Justicia for Migrant Workers.

It was one of three stops which included St. Catharines and Niagara Falls.

The organization promotes the rights of farm workers in the Canadian Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (SWAP) and the Low Skilled Workers Program.

There are many migrant workers here in NOTL which are a part of SWAP, says Ramsaroop.

It is a program which responds to the labour shortage in the Canadian agricultural industry.

Migrant workers come from places such as Jamaica, Mexico or the Carribean and they can work from four to eight months in Canada, says Ramsaroop.

The organizer says the rallies are an attempt to education people about the lack of rights, the possibility of deportation if workers speak out and fees workers have to pay to recruiters just to work in Canada.

He says both the SWAP and the LSWP face the same issues.

Ramsaroop says people on the street became receptive to what the rally was about and were willing to listen when they gave away pears, peaches and vegetables which the migrant workers help to grow and harvest.

“It’s helping to break the invisibility of migrant workers.”

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CUPE National, regulations concerning elections for national office

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By admin, August 25, 2011 2:24 pm

Home / Convention / CUPE National Convention

Regulations concerning elections for national office

http://cupe.ca/cupe-national-convention/regulations-concerning-elections

Dear Sisters and Brothers:

In accordance with clause 5 of the Chief Electoral Officer section of the Regulations, I serve as the principle administrative support to our Chief Electoral Officer Sister Nancy Riche.

Please find an electronic version of the above mentioned document, adopted by the NEB in 2003 then presented to and received by delegates at the 2003 National Convention.

I want to draw your attention to page two of the Regulations, particularly opportunities for candidates for National Office to have a brochure or letter mailed out to all chartered organizations.

You will note that the production of the brochure or letter is the responsibility of the candidates along with photocopying, translation and mailing costs. We don’t have a lot of experience with acting on these provisions as no candidates have availed themselves of this opportunity since the inception of the Regulations in 2003.

We expect this may change this year and therefore wanted to offer everyone the same information as a guide.

In terms of quantity, a total of 4,000 copies of a brochure or letter are required in order to send to all chartered organizations.

We would suggest that a single mailing be sent which would include pieces from all interested candidates along with a cover note from Sister Nancy Riche, our Chief Electoral Officer. This will serve to bring down the cost of the mailing to each candidate as the cost of the single mailing will be shared by the candidates who chose to participate in the mailing.

For further clarity, we propose that all pieces, in sufficient quantities, be at the National Office by September 27, 2011. The National Office will then mail the pieces in a single mailing on October 4, 2011.

All candidates who are opting to do such a mailing should advise me in advance, so that we can ensure all candidates are included in the mailing.

In solidarity,

Robert Hickes
Managing Director
Organizing and Regional Services Department

Download the full regulations as a PDF
(53 kB)

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Stop the Cuts Network in the City of Toronto

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By admin, August 25, 2011 2:20 pm

Dear CUPE 3907 Members,

Invitation to participate in Mass Meeting to Stop Ford’s Cuts, Sep 10, 1pm, Dufferin Grove Park.

My name is Lindsay, and I am writing on behalf of the Toronto Stop the Cuts Network, a grassroots alliance of community groups, service providers and Toronto residents that are organizing to stop cuts to public services by the Ford regime. Like you, we live and work in Toronto, delivering and accessing city services. For many of us libraries, community centers, employment assistance and infrastructure are essential and cuts to them would mean a dramatic change in the quality of our lives.

Like you, we’ve spent the last few months, watching Ford build a massive fear mongering campaign. Everything it seems is under threat. We’ve filled out surveys, gone to deputations, organized meetings, marches and rallies – yet Ford and his cronies show no sign of backing down.

We also know that some cuts have already happened – there are user fees in community centers, the Jarvis bike lane was chopped off, and many childcare spots have already disappeared. We also know that many in the city, undocumented people, racialized communities, poor people, those without ID are already shut out of many public services.

We know that the Executive Committee of City Hall is meeting on Sep 19, and the City voting on cuts, user fees, and anti-union measures on September 26 and 27.

Days before this, a number of groups and people in the city are calling for a Mass Meeting to Stop Ford Cuts. Over 500 people have confirmed on Facebook, and many Unions and Community organizations including city workers and health organizations have confirmed their participation. This meeting is to do three things:

1. Collect the different demands, hopes and aspirations of Torontonians to develop a concise set of people’s priorities to deliver to City Hall.

2. Develop a plan of action for September 26 and 27 if these priorities are not adequately reflected in the Executive Council discussions on September 19.

3. Strengthen relationships between community groups, service providers, labour organizations and Toronto residents to resist cuts by any level of government, to work to expand services for all people, and to end the handouts to cops and corporations.

Unions, and the labour movement, have been part of many struggles in this city – and it would be imperative for your organization to attend the meeting on September 10. We are writing today to see if you could advertise the event on facebook, on twitter and on your list-servs. Could you email or call all your members and ask them to attend? Would you be interested in developing a draft people’s declaration prior to September 10 with us?

At a time when politicians across the world seem only interested in ensuring that the rich get richer, while women, disabled people, poor, working class and migrant communities are shut out – we need to reclaim democracy for ourselves. We need to talk to each other, develop our own plans, and our own agendas, and then act on them. I really hope that you can support the September 10 meeting and will call you in the next few days to discuss this person. In the meantime, do email or call with questions, ideas or concerns.

In solidarity,

Lindsay Hart

Toronto Stop the Cuts Network

For more information or to endorse this meeting, please contact tostopthecuts@gmail.com.

Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=104686749631378

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Labour Chasing Fool’s Gold: Austerity and class struggle

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By admin, December 6, 2010 2:12 pm

by Ajamu Nangwaya – BASICS Issue #23 (Nov / Dec 2010)

http://basicsnews.ca/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4463:labour-chasing-fools-gold&catid=1:latest-news&Itemid=69

“Hegel remarks somewhere that all facts and personages of great importance in world history occur, as it were twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce.”

– Karl Marx, The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte

The above quotation could have been referring to the affection for Keynesian economics by the bureaucrats in Ontario’s trade unions (organized labour).

Keynesianism is a fiscal policy approach that believes the state’s management of the overall injection of spending into the economy by government, businesses and consumers is critical to achieving full employment and economic prosperity.

The government is seen as the key player in encouraging the required level of “aggregate demand.” It does so through its own spending and power over taxation, interest rate and the money supply.

Marx also said that “the tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living.”

This quote captures the burden of organized labour’s post-war engagement with Keynesian economics and the way that it tries to resurrect it like old Lazarus, in the face of the current crisis in capitalism.

The brain trust at CUPE Ontario has been trumpeting an alternative economic response to the wage freeze proposal of the McGuinty Liberals.

I, for one, was looking for a transformative document that would be guided by a working-class informed position on political economy and the class struggle.

But what we got was the demand management trope that is the core of John Maynard Keynes’s approach to stabilizing the inherent boom and bust features of capitalism’s business cycle. Keynes’ book, General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money was written as a manual for maintaining the vibrancy of capitalism.

Why is it that so many labour leaders have this compulsive and inexplicable attachment to Keynesianism?

These used-to-be advocates of the working-class should remember that the post-war welfare state was a strategic bargain between organized labour, the state and the capitalist class in the West to weaken the appeal of socialism or radicalism to the working-class.

Another reason for the unholy alliance of these partners in crime was to support anti-communism at home and abroad as well as allegiance to imperialist policies in the Third World.
The state used its spending and taxation powers and control over the interest rate to manage aggregate demand in the economy. These policy tools facilitated the provision of social programmes as a means to make capitalist political economy legitimate.

However, by the mid-1970s, the capitalist class and the state were sufficiently confident that they had hegemony over the working-class and had contained the threat of socialism.
So they turned their backs on the welfare state deal with organized labour, and thus began the era of neoliberalism.

Looking back at the relentless attack of the elite on workers since the 1970s gives us an insight into the current proposed two-year wage-freeze attack on over 1 million public sector workers by the Ontario Liberals.

Many labour unions’ leaderships are hesitant to define the government’s proposed wage-freeze as part of the class struggle.

This political timidity was evident in CUPE Ontario’s presentation to Liberal government’s functionaries on August 30, 2010. It included colourful graphs and Keynesian arguments for investment in the public sector. CUPE Ontario offered Keynesian advice to a government that just recently borrowed from Keynes’ demand management playbook to prevent an economic collapse of the provincial economy.

It should have been clear to this labour organization that the Liberals didn’t need to be convinced that pumping money into the provincial economy during the Great Recession was a way to maintain an economic environment that was safe for business and maintain the legitimacy of the system in the eyes of the majority.

The preceding state of affairs strengthens our case that the quest to pick over $1.5 billion from the pockets of public sector workers is not about fighting the deficit.
It is about the class struggle and taking the fight to those “uppity” little workers who want a liveable wage.

Premier McGuinty and his group of neoliberal “bandits” must excuse us for not reading the scouting report, which specifies that only a dog-eat-dog economic nightmare befits today’s working-class.

Our bad, ‘Premier Dad’!

CUPE Ontario’s leadership was dismayed that in spite of taking advantage of the “unprecedented opportunity to share our ideas, in detail, with representatives of many government ministries…. discussions did not result in any substantive response from the government to our proposals about better ways to improve and protect public services.”

It may not have dawned on the brain trust of that labour organization that the Ontario Liberals were quite familiar with the required mix of government spending, taxation and interest rate and money supply manipulation to move the economy in the desired direction.

Evidence of how conventional CUPE Ontario’s alternative plan was may be gleaned from the manner in which its recommendation on the taxing certain levels of income dovetails with the anti-taxation message of the right.

In the presentation to the emergency meeting of its affiliated locals in August 2010, CUPE Ontario’s leadership pandered to the political right’s aversion to the taxation of income with the following statement: “High income earner taxes: new top bracket for $130K plus.”

Based on 2004 tax data, only 5 per cent of Canadians earned $89,000 and above so why is CUPE Ontario proposing such a high tax threshold? Could it be that labour leaders and some workers are now earning over $100,000 and are just interested in having others pay any tax increase?

It may not be clear to some labour organizations that a decent social wage through access to universal social programmes is very much dependent on taxation.
An anti-taxation mindset is not in the best interest of the working-class whose access to generous levels of unemployment benefits, public transportation, publicly-funded and operated childcare facilities, public education, a public pension plan and a whole host of public services is only possible when businesses and the general citizenry contribute to the tax base.

Our fight as workers and residents of Ontario against the wage-freeze, attacks on the special diet programme, rollback of spending on Metrolinx transportation programme and billions of dollars in tax cut to the business sector will not be won through Keynesian-inspired fancy power-point presentations to the Ontario Liberals.

It will be won through consistent economic and political education (from a working-class perspective) of public sectors workers and the broader working-class in this province.

It will be won through abandoning the bread-and-butter trade unionism that saw most of Ontario’s public sector unions obsessively focused on the proposed wage-freeze and not the array of policy proposals in the March 2010 budget that assaulted the economic interest of the working-class.

It will be won by working in principled alliances with social movement groups to mobilize and self-organize the working-class to challenge the government in the streets and all available political spaces.

Sucking up to the Ontario Liberals and trying to appear reasonable will not win the struggle for economic justice.

Ajamu Nangwaya is a trade union activist, member of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) and former vice-president of CUPE Ontario.

Class and Class Struggle Trade Unionism, Community, Get Involved, Labour Links, Union Democracy and Renewal, Unions on Campus

Government-Union Wage-Freeze Talks are a Trap

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By admin, October 30, 2010 12:54 pm

CUPE Quarterly (Local 3906), Volume I, Issue 2
http://www.cupe3906.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/CUPE-Quarte…

By Ajamu Nangwaya
Chair – External, CUPE 3907

As a trade union member who works in the broader public
sector and would be affected by the proposed wage-freeze,
I have been strongly opposed to labour unions meeting
with the McGuinty Liberals. The only logical purpose behind
these government-initiated meetings is to strike deals with labour bureaucrats at the table in exchange for agreeing to wage-cuts for unionized members.

There is a collective bargaining process through which the working class attempts to extract wages and benefits for the contribution that it makes to the creation of wealth in this society. Why would labour leaders even agree to negotiate with the McGuinty Liberals when the strategic objective of the state is the delivery to the bosses
of the worker’s material interests on the proverbial silver platter?

Were these labour leaders spooked by the implication the Supreme Court’s BC Health Services decision which rejected British Columbia’s unilateral removal of clauses in the collective agreement of public sector workers, and stipulated that governments should negotiate in good faith with the elected representatives of the workers? Is it possible that some of these leaders are still rattled
by public reaction to the recent strikes in the cities of Windsor and Toronto and at York University?

The working-class and labour bureaucrats cannot face the employer with fear in their eyes and minds. As workers, we need to take a broad look at the general attack by the government and private sector actors on all of us who sell our labour, have no real control over the organizing of worklife and little say in the distribution of the fruit of, or profit from, collective labour.

Therefore, we should take the $4.6 billion tax-cut, the attack on the special diet allowance and the postponement of the $4 billion Metrolinx investment in transportation infrastructure as assaults on the working-class of this province. If the labour movement had mobilized its material resources and members when these attacks were advanced in the March 2010 budget, it would have greater credibility with the public that its refusal to take a wage-freeze is
about all workers earning a livable wage.

Organized labour must educate, mobilize and organize its members through a power and democracy from below strategy so as to effectively resist the McGuinty Liberals’ attempt to shaft the workers of this province.

SOURCE: http://linchpin.ca/English/Government-Union-Wage-Freeze-Talks-are-Trap

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The Privileging of Whiteness in Today’s Union

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By admin, October 26, 2010 11:08 am

Current Members of the National Executive Board

The National Executive Board makes decisions on behalf of CUPE members in between conventions. Its members are elected by CUPE members at CUPE’s biennial national conventions. This section contains summaries of the board’s meetings, and decisions taken.

Paul Moist, National President

Jun 22, 2009 03:32 PM Paul Moist was elected national president on October 29, 2003, at CUPE’s bi-annual national convention in Quebec City.

Claude Généreux, National Secretary-Treasurer

Oct 20, 2009 07:36 PM Claude Généreux first was elected Secretary-Treasurer of the Canadian Union of Public Employees in the fall of 2001.

Daniel Légère

Jun 29, 2005 11:49 AM

General Vice-President
Daniel Légère has been a union activist ever since he was first hired as a correctional officer in St. Hilaire, N.B. in 1980. While still on probation, he became a shop steward and fought an unjustified reprimand. His involvement has taken many forms in CUPE and in the community ever since.

Lucie Levasseur

Nov 2, 2007 11:37 AM

General Vice-President
Lucie Levasseur comes to CUPE’s National Executive Board from Québec’s post-secondary education sector.

Fred Hahn

Dec 14, 2009 03:59 PM

General Vice-President, Ontario

Fred Hahn has been an active member of CUPE since 1991. A social worker raised in rural Ontario, Fred chose to use his degree from the University of Toronto advocating for children with intellectual disabilities with Community Living Toronto.

Tom Graham

Oct 1, 2008 12:54 PM

General Vice-President, Saskatchewan

Tom Graham first became involved in CUPE in 1979, when he was hired by the City of Saskatoon Sign and Paint shop. He was elected president of CUPE Saskatchewan in 1998.

Barry O’Neill

Jan 16, 2004 10:46 AM

General Vice-President
Barry was elected to the national executive board in 1998, first as a regional vice president.

Wayne Lucas

Aug 24, 2009 03:24 PM

Regional Vice-President, Newfoundland and Labrador

Lucas has been a CUPE member for over 30 years, having started his career as a school board worker in 1978. He has served as the president of CUPE Newfoundland and Labrador for the past 19 years.

Danny Cavanagh

Apr 29, 2005 03:22 PM

Regional Vice-President, Nova Scotia
Danny Cavanagh was first elected as president of CUPE Nova Scotia on April 27th, 2005 at the annual convention in Sydney. He is also president of his local, CUPE 734 the outside workers for the Town of Truro.

Sandy Harding

Jun 10, 2008 03:17 PM

Regional Vice-President, New Brunswick

Milo Murray

Nov 2, 2007 11:30 AM

Regional Vice-President, Prince Edward Island

Charles Fleury

Nov 3, 2003 11:36 AM

Regional Vice-President, Québec

Charles Fleury is the Secretary-General of CUPE Local 1500, Employees of Hydro-Quebec, and has been regional vice-president since 2005. A Hydro-Quebec employee since 1982, he worked at James Bay until 1991, and is now a transmission installer in the Laurentians.

Nathalie Stringer

May 15, 2008 10:58 AM

Regional Vice-President for Quebec
Nathalie Stringer is president of CUPE’s Air Transat component, with bases in Montréal, Toronto and Vancouver.

Michael Hurley

Dec 18, 2001 11:40 AM

Regional Vice-President, Ontario

Candace Rennick

Jan 16, 2004 02:19 PM

Regional Vice-President, Ontario
Candace Rennick, a health care worker, is in her third term on the National Executive Board. She was first elected as regional vice-president (RVP) at 23, filling a vacancy for Ontario on the NEB.

Henri Giroux

Nov 20, 2009 02:12 PM

Regional Vice-President, Northern Ontario
Henri Giroux has been president of his local, an Cassellholme Home in North Bay, for 26 years. He has been president of the North Bay CUPE council for the past 10 years, and president of the North Bay and District Labour Council for the past 3 years.

Mike Davidson

Nov 20, 2009 02:14 PM

Regional Vice-President, Manitoba
Mike Davidson has been a CUPE member for 30 years, starting out as a park worker at the city of Winnipeg in 1979. He is vice-president for CUPE Manitoba, and president of CUPE Local 500, representing 5000 workers at the City of Winnipeg.

Judy Henley

Nov 20, 2009 02:16 PM

Regional Vice-President, Saskatchewan
Sister Judy Henley has been a CUPE member since 1982. She is a Health Care worker; through the years working in health care she held different positions. She is the Secretary-Treasurer of Local 4980 and is currently in her eighth year as Secretary-Treasurer of CUPE Saskatchewan.

Dennis Mol

Jun 11, 2009 08:28 AM

Regional Vice-President, Alberta
Dennis Mol became Regional Vice-President for Alberta when he was elected president of CUPE Alberta in March 2009.

Mark Hancock

Aug 11, 2005 12:31 PM

Regional Vice-President, British Columbia
Mark Hancock was appointed August 2, 2005 to replace Colleen Jordan as the Regional Vice President for BC after Colleen Jordan stepped down.

Ken Robinson

Dec 17, 2008 03:17 PM

Regional Vice-President, British Columbia
Ken Robinson is a diet technician at Kelowna General Hospital and has been an HEU member for 20 years. He has held a number of positions on the union’s provincial executive in the past decade, most recently as first vice-president, and is the chairperson of the Kelowna Amalgamated local.

Affirmative Action Seats on the NEB

Yolanda McClean

Nov 2, 2007 11:46 AM

Diversity Vice-President (Racialized Members)

Brian Barron

Nov 2, 2007 11:48 AM

Diversity Vice-President (Aboriginal Members)

Brian Barron is Status First Nations CUPE member. He has been a City of Winnipeg employee for 29 years, working in the Public Works Department in field operations and as a foreman.

CUPE’s National Committees and

Working Groups

National Advisory Committee on Pensions

National Health Care Issues Committee

National Global Justice Committee

Persons with Disabilities National Working Group

National Young Workers Committee

National Child Care Working Group

National Environment Committee

National Health and Safety Committee

National Literacy Working Group

National Pink Triangle Committee

National Contracting Out and Privatization Co-ordinating Committee

National Women’s Committee

National Rainbow Committee

National Rainbow Committee

National Aboriginal Council

National Trustees

CUPE national trustees at work on May 12, 2010 in Ottawa. Left to right: Mark Goodwin (ON), Ronald Dagenais (QC), Colin Pawson (BC).

2009 – 2011 Appointments

STATISTICAL INFORMATION CUPE NATIONAL COMMITTEES

	Total # of Applicants = 476	Total # of members Appointed = 186	Total # of Re-appointments = 108	Total # of new Appointments = 78
Female	258	111	56	45
Male	215	75	42	33
Transgendered	3	1	1	0
Aboriginal Worker	41	21	14	7
Worker of Colour	91	20	13	7
Worker with Disability	68	20	11	9
Gay, Lesbian, Bi-Sexual Worker	43	19	14	5
Youth Worker	22	11	6	5

National Political Action Committee

Equity Issues, Gender and Feminism, Get Involved, Labour Links, News & Events, Racial Justice and Anti-Racism, Union Democracy and Renewal, Unions on Campus

Graduate Assistant Workers at OISE/UT

Category: Labour Links

http://www.thecaribbeancamera.com/news/5290-js-1

Race, Oppositional Politics, and the Challenges of Post-9/11 Mass Movement-Building Spaces

Abstract

Refbacks

By KARENA WALTER Standard Staff

Posted 3 days ago

Migrant workers rallying for their rights

By Sarah Ferguson

Posted 19 hours ago

Regulations concerning elections for national office

Affirmative Action Seats on the NEB

National Young Workers Committee

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