General Membership Meeting – November 22

Greetings!

The next General Membership Meeting will be held on Tuesday, November 22, from 5-6:30pm in Campus Centre, Room 121.

Your opinion matters – Bring a co-worker!

Shredding Event for United Way – November 16

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The Shredding Event is happening Wednesday, November 16 for 1.5 hours at each campus! Start gathering your old papers to bring for shredding at either campus. $10 donation per box.

ACCESS, the company that Camosun uses to shred its confidential materials, will have a truck on campus. Bring your paper materials/documents that you need to be dealt with in a confidential manner and have them shredded here while you support the United Way.

Orange Shirt Day – gathering

On September 30, many Camosun students and employees will show their commitment to the principle that every child matters and to show support for those who attended residential schools and their families by wearing orange shirts.

Camosun Indigenous Studies students Eddy Charlie and Kristin Spray, with the support of the Camosun Board of Governors and the Centre for Indigenous Education and Community Connections, invite the college community and supporters to attend a gathering at 1:15pm, Friday, September 30 at Na’tsa’maht (the Gathering Place) at the Lansdowne Campus, wear an orange shirt, eat fry bread, and sing the huy ch qu song to show respect and to honour those who attended residential schools and their families.

For more information, please see Orange Shirt Day and TRC Calls to Action

Vancouver Island District Council materials available

Four of your Vancouver Island District Council representatives, Keith Todd, Earle Thompson, Kelly Parton, and Dawn Svendsen, attended Saturday’s VIDC meeting in Nanaimo. In addition to the regular business at hand, guest speakers from Together Against Poverty Society and CUPE Local 50, made presentations. Documents from the meeting are available for review in the CUPE Office (Lansdowne, Young 224).

Please contact us if you are interested in becoming a representative of your Local at these meetings.

Capitalism vs. the Climate: A Virtual Lecture with Naomi Klein – September 28

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NFB Education and Humber College will be hosting a lecture with Naomi Klein on Wednesday, September 28.
The Library will be setting up a livestream of this lecture, running from 8-9am PST, streamed in Lansdowne – Fisher 100 and at Interurban – Library 354.

Please feel free to share this information with any students and colleagues who might be interested.

More information about the lecture is available through the NFB Education website.

Attend the CRD Board sewage treatment meeting on September 14

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The CRD Board will meet this Wednesday (September 14, 2016) to decide on the future of sewage treatment. While we have gone many years without a plan for sewage treatment, the CRD must have a plan in place by September 30th, 2016 to keep $500 million of funding from the Provincial and Federal governments.

CUPE National President Mark Hancock will be attending this meeting to urge the Board to implement a fully public solution. I encourage you to attend the meeting and show your support for public services.

Further details about the meeting are below.

In solidarity,

Trevor Davies

 

WHO: CUPE National President Mark Hancock will present to the Capital Region District Board on Wednesday, September 14, 2016. CUPE members from Local 1978 and other Victoria  Area Locals will attend the meeting supporting publicly owned and operated sewage treatment.

WHAT: The BC Government appointed project board recommendations, made public on September 7th, will be considered by the Capital Region District Board. CUPE Local 1978 has long been campaigning for a publicly owned and operated sewage treatment plant in the CRD.

WHEN: 9:30 am – Wednesday, September 14, 2016

WHERE: CRD Board Room – 625 Fisgard Street, Victoria, BC

CUPE Retirement Planning Workshop October 14-15

Greetings,

We are pleased to advise a two-day CUPE BC Workshop, Retirement Planning, has been organized for interested members.

The Workshop will be held 9:00am-4:00pm on each of Friday, Oct 14 and Saturday, Oct 15 at the Lansdowne Campus, in the Paul Building, Room 109 (P 109). Here is a description of the Workshop:

RETIREMENT PLANNING

It’s never too early to start planning for your retirement. Learn about government and workplace pensions and leave with some good tools to help you prepare financially and psychologically.

NOTE: This workshop does not provide specific or personal financial advice.

Participants are requested to bring with them their “Member Benefits Statement” as the MPP presenter goes over them during their presentation on Friday, October 14 from 9:00-11:00am, and 1:00-3:00pm for CPP.

If the participant does not have their “Member Benefits Statement” please have them call the MPP at 1-800-668-6335 to set up an account.

If they already have an account and need to reprint their statement they can go to the MPP site www.mpp.pensionsbc.ca where they select “My Account” and follow the directions.

Please bring a calculator.

For this two day Workshop, Friday will be Employer-paid leave and Saturday will be your own time, provided you do not work on Saturdays. If you do work on Saturdays, vacation leave or banked overtime leave or unpaid leave may be taken. Participants MUST attend both days.

If you are interested in attending the Workshop, please first seek approval from your supervisor. Then, let us know you are interested in attending (phone 250-370-3665, or email cupe2081@camosun.bc.ca, or visit Young 224). Also, let us know if your spouse will be attending the Workshop with you.

Thank you!

Labour Day: Better jobs for a better Canada

Here is the message from our National Officers for Labour Day (reposted from CUPE National)

While we gather this long weekend for a well-deserved break with family, friends and neighbours, let us also mark this Labour Day by committing to fight the growth of precarious work in our workplaces, stand against inequality in our communities, and help empower every Canadian worker by organizing them into a union.

Canadians are being conditioned to expect less and less from their employers. Dead-end jobs, with low wages and no benefits, are becoming the norm for far too many workers.

Little to no job security; fewer and inferior benefits; less control over working conditions; employers demanding ‘flexibility’ that really means more casual, part-time and term positions.

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While many of us will be getting a well deserved break this Labour Day long-weekend, many more will be faced with the uncertainty, and most likely the poverty, of having to scratch out a living in a precarious job.

Labour Day has long been a time for Canadian unions to acknowledge and celebrate our many accomplishments for our members and all workers. But it also must be a time for us to take a look at the new reality.

Our research shows as much as a third of all jobs in Canada can be considered precarious work.

And if you are a woman, or under 35 years old, or a part of an equity-seeking group, the odds your work is precarious is even higher.

Women are more likely to work less than 30 hours per week with no benefits.

Young workers, or those below 35 years of age, are less likely to have workplace pensions, or sick leave.

Racialized workers are far more likely to be precariously employed.

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As Canada’s largest union, we have a responsibility to take a stand against this spread of precarious work.

This is why CUPE is working with other Canadians to pressure governments to do more for workers. We are working for better and stronger laws to protect workers from hazards and dangers in the workplace, and harsher penalties for employers who neglect the safety of their workers. We have joined campaigns across Canada to raise minimum wages and fight for living wages. We are continuing our efforts in the fight for pay equity and fair wages for everyone.

These campaigns and political action work are important parts of the work we do as a union, but organizing is the most powerful tool we have to better the lives of Canadian workers.  We must organize workers, allowing them the single best way to fight precarity and inequality in the workplace – a union.

We hope you have a safe and relaxing Labour Day long-weekend celebrating all we have accomplished for workers, and come back refreshed and refocused ready to help every worker build a better life and a better Canada.

In Solidarity,

Mark Hancock
National President

Charles Fleury
National Secretary-Treasurer