Orange Shirt Day | September 29, 2021

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What is Orange Shirt Day?

In the spring of 2013, Phyllis Webstad – a residential school survivor – first shared her story at a St. Joseph Mission Residential School Commemoration Project and Reunion event held in Williams Lake, British Columbia. Phyllis recounted her first day of residential schooling at six years old, when her new orange shirt—bought by her grandmother—was taken away from her. Phyllis’s story inspired Orange Shirt Day as an annual event. Between the late 1800s and 1996, more than 150,000 First Nations, Métis and Inuit children were taken to residential schools and Orange Shirt Day commemorates this legacy. In the spirit of Truth and Reconciliation, we encourage you to observe September 30th with an open heart. We acknowledge that this year has seen many triggering news stories about former residential school sites, and it is a stark reminder there is still much work to do. Every. Child. Matters.

Please note that Camosun College is observing Orange Shirt Day on Wednesday, September 29th as the college will be closed on September 30th so that our community can reflect, learn, and attend community events in light of the federally announced stat holiday. The National Day for Truth and Reconciliation stat is a direct response from the government to one of the TRC calls to action, although we recognize that we all have long to go on the path to both truth and reconciliation.

What Can I Do?

Tomorrow, September 29, please wear an orange shirt to show your commitment to reconciliation and to support the survivors of the residential school system and their kin.
Please remember that it is not Indigenous people’s responsibility to teach anyone about the residential school system. This is potentially a very triggering and traumatizing topic and we kindly remind our members that education is widely available and offered, both within the college and from other sources. Please view this list for a variety of sources:

Community Supports/Outreach

  • Residential Schools Crisis Line. Their mandate is to support residential school survivors and their families but their policy is not to turn anyone away. 1-866-925-4419
  • Kids Help Phone, an anonymous and confidential phone and on-line professional counselling service for youth. 1-800-668-6868
  • Eyēʔ Sqȃ’lewen/IECC – Camosun’s Indigenous Education & Community Connections are dedicated to quality education and serve Indigenous students and communities. 250-370-3299 or 250-370-4870
  • Island Community Mental Health. 250-389-1211
  • Victoria Native Friendship Center. 250-384-3211
  • Songhees Wellness Centre. 250-386-1043 ext. 313

Federal Election Day | September 20, 2021

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Monday September 20th is ELECTION DAY! If you did not vote in advance polls, Monday is your opportunity to cast your vote and make your choice! Polls are open from 7am-7pm in BC

CUPE has a long tradition of supporting the New Democratic Party, as the party of labour. However, we recognize your vote is your choice. If you remain undecided, we offer information for your consideration: https://cupe.ca/cupe-votes

*What Institutions Need to Know:

At a minimum, the Canada Election Act, section 132 requires that employees who are Canadian citizens aged 18 years old or more on Election Day have three consecutive hours free from work without loss of pay while polls are open for the purpose of casting their ballot. *** If your schedule does not provide for the necessary time to vote, please connect with your supervisor to ensure you have the time free to exercise your right under the Canada Election Act.

 2021 Federal Election | Text Message Notifications

The Division sent text message reminders to CUPE BC members on Monday for the final day of advance voting in the federal election.  Leading up to September 20, members can expect to receive 1-2 more text messages from the Division containing voting reminders and Election Day information.

 Upcoming CUPE BC Canvasses | 2021 Federal Elections

Below is a list of upcoming canvasses and leaflet drops taking place in the days leading up to Election Day on September 20:

 

Pitt Meadows-Maple Ridge Canvass

Phil Klapwyk 

Sept 17 – 5:30-8:30pm **Today**

22386 119th Avenue, Maple Ridge

Sign-up: Click here

 

Vancouver Granville Canvass

Anjali Appadurai 

Sept 18 | 5:30-8:30pm

5590 Victoria Drive, Vancouver

Sign-up: Click here 

 

Nanaimo-Ladysmith Canvass

Lisa Marie Barron 

Sept 18 | 3:00-6:00pm

140 Commercial Street, Nanaimo

Sign-up: Click here

 

Burnaby North-Seymour Leaflet Drop

Jim Hanson 

Sept 19 | 2:00-5:00pm

4340 Hastings Street, Vancouver

Sign-up: Click here

 North Island-Powell River Canvass

Rachel Blaney 

Sept 17 | 5:30-8:30pm **Today**

975 Shoppers Row (Tyee Plaza)

Sign-up: Click here

 

Courtenay-Alberni Canvass

Gord Johns 

Sept 18 | 10:00am-12:30pm

111 – 255 6th Street, Courtenay

Sign-up: Click here

 

Esquimalt-Saanich-Sooke Leaflet Drop

Randall Garrison 

Sept 19 | 11:00am-4:00pm

Unit 5C, 100 Aldersmith Place, View Royal

Sign-up: Click here 

 

Victoria Leaflet Drop

Laurel Collins 

Sept 19 | 5:30-8:30pm

1262 Quadra Street, Victoria

Sign-up: Click here

Please also check the CUPE BC Facebook page for a full list of other upcoming canvasses and events.

 

BCFED Update | September 2021

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On behalf of BCFED

Hello Friends,
And a happy belated Labour Day.

This week, the BCFED released a seminal new report on the case for 10 days of employer-paid sick leave. Titled, An Equitable Recovery – The Case for Paid Sick Leave as a Right of Employment in BC, this is our contribution to the BC government’s consultation that will shape the paid sick leave program coming into effect this January.

The report shows that paid sick leave is a fundamental part of how we build a strong and equitable economy and safeguard public health. And that BC lags badly behind other jurisdictions. It also includes exclusive polling that shows nine-in-ten British Columbians (89%) agree that businesses have a responsibility to provide paid sick leave; and that more than four-in-five British Columbians (86%) support our proposal for 10 employer-paid sick days.

We hope you’ll join our campaign and help share our call to action to legislate 10 employer-paid days for all workers!

Laird Cronk, President
Sussanne Skidmore, Secretary-Treasurer

LABOUR HERITAGE CENTER

BC hospital dietary and cleaning workers with the Hospital Employees Union scored a historic win against privatization, brining their jobs back into the public sector. Read about their decades long fight in this excellent blog post.

STRIKES AND LOCKOUTS

Please respect the unions’ picket lines in the following disputes, and do not patronize these businesses until the dispute is settled.

UNITE HERE Local 40 vs Pacific Gateway Hotel
Major Issues: Recall Rights, Concessions
Commenced: May 3, 2021

UNITE HERE Local 40 vs Hilton Metrotown
Major Issues: Refusal to extend recall rights, Concessions
Commenced: February 12, 2021

IBEW 213 vs Ledcor
Major Issues: First agreement (in bargaining for 2 years), mass terminations, working conditions, pay & benefits, job security & seniority
Commenced: September 30, 2019

BOYCOTTS & HOT EDICTS

Boycott: Pacific Gateway Hotel, Richmond, BC – UNITE HERE Local 40/BCFED
Boycott: Hilton Metrotown, Burnaby, BC – UNITE HERE Local 40/BCFED

OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH & SAFETY COURSES

Safe, convenient and effective virtual classrooms
The delivery method has changed, but all BCFED Health & Safety Centre virtual courses offer the comprehensive curriculum and learning outcomes many have come to trust. The Centre’s virtual classroom training still applies adult learning principles to ensure learning is engaging, relevant and effective. Our virtual classrooms offer live, real-time learning, providing the benefits of traditional in-person training. Due to demand, we have added additional courses to our virtual course schedule.

Request a course
Beyond scheduled classes, and where participant numbers warrant, we can also work with you to coordinate almost any of our training courses in a virtual classroom for all workers and workplace representatives. Request a course

BCFED Puts Pressure on Government to Uphold TRC Calls to Action

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On behalf of the BCFED

On Thursday, July 8th President of the BC Federation of Labour Laird Cronk sent a letter to put pressure on Prime Minister Trudeau, Premier John Horgan, as well as federal and provincial ministers regarding the TRC Calls To Action:

Dear Prime Minister Trudeau, Federal Ministers Bennett, Miller, Lametti, and Tassi; Premier Horgan and BC Ministers Eby and Rankin:

Re:       TRC Calls to Action

We write to you today on behalf of the BC Federation of Labour (BCFED) which represents over 500,000 working people in the province of British Columbia through its affiliated unions. We write in the wake of the uncovering in Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc, Sioux Valley Dakota and Muskowekwan territories over the past weeks of unmarked children’s graves at the sites of multiple residential schools.

It has been over five years since the 94 Calls to Action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of Canada were published, and over five years since you promised to take immediate action to implement them all.

We are calling upon you to uphold that commitment and to fully implement all the TRC Calls to Action, and to pay special attention to the Calls to Action that deal with missing children, justice and health.

There were over 130 government-operated residential schools, all of which need to be fully investigated for remains in culturally appropriate ways. This work must be led by Indigenous communities and fully resourced and funded by the federal government. It is expected that thousands of unmarked graves exist across Canada of Indigenous children who died at residential schools. Families who never saw their children return home experience never-ending grief and continue to live with deep scars.

The BCFED is deeply concerned by the federal government’s inaction on identifying and returning the remains of stolen children, as recounted by TRC Commissioner and Chair, the Honourable Murray Sinclair:

“We asked the government to allow us to conduct a fuller inquiry to that part of the work of the TRC, to explore that on behalf of the survivors and Canadian public. We submitted a proposal, as it was not within the mandate of the TRC, and that request was denied. So largely we did what we could, but it was not anywhere near what we needed to investigate. Now we are seeing evidence of the large number of children who died.”

In the wake of the evidence coming to light on multiple sites of residential schools across the country, we urge you to do right by the memory of the children, and their families.

As such, there are a number of pressing priorities that require urgent action. We call upon you and your government to stop fighting residential school survivors in court, as per TRC Call to Action 29.  Canadian Human Rights Tribunal’s ruling, which was an expansion of the 2017 ruling, found that the federal government is willfully and recklessly discriminating against First Nations children in ways that contributed to child deaths and a multitude of unnecessary family separations. The Tribunal ordered Canada to pay $40,000 to each victim of its discriminatory conduct, dating back to 2006. We publicly acknowledge that despite your own repeated assertions that you allowed your government to file a judicial review to “quash all financial compensation” on October 4, 2019.

In addition, we also call upon you to stop blocking the creation of statistical reports on residential school abuse claims and the direct transfer of all other records to the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation.

We call upon you to immediately implement the Spirit Bear Plan of the First Nations Family and Caring Society, led by Cindy Blackstock, to end inequalities in public services for First Nations children, youth and families. We also call upon you to provide adequate and sustainable mental health and addictions services to Indigenous peoples on and off reserve in both rural and urban areas.

We call upon you to immediately solve the lack of clean drinking water for First Nations and implement United Nations General Assembly Resolution 64/292 which explicitly recognizes access to safe drinking water and sanitation as a human right and has been endorsed by Canada.

And finally, we call upon you to legislate full adoption of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, particularly the requirement for free, prior and informed consent when making decisions that impact Indigenous rights, with full support and collaboration from Indigenous Peoples.

The moral imperative for action is clear. We look forward to seeing imminent progress.

Yours sincerely,

LAIRD CRONK             SUSSANNE SKIDMORE

President                           Secretary-Treasurer

Scholar Strike Canada

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A Scholar Strike for Black Lives in Canada is taking place on Sept 9th & 10th, 2020.  For these two days, organizers are encouraging academics and all university/education workers to pause teaching and all administrative duties.  They have used this time to organize public digital teach-ins on police brutality and violence in our communities from both historical and contemporary perspectives that are available to everyone.

Scholar Strike organizers recognize the precarious labour status of workers in Canada, and they invite university workers to participate in this labour action as much as they are able to engage.  They understand that some will not be able to participate fully, but there are many ways to engage with this protest, from amplifying the message on social media to using the digital public teach-ins during class time.

Acknowledging that Canada’s university and college campuses stand on the ancestral and traditional territories of Indigenous peoples, they are making these calls to action in the spirit of our collective commitment to work towards liberating Black, Indigenous and transnational frameworks and knowledges, while actively working for a liberated global future.

Please visit the website for more detailed information, program summary, and ways you can get involved: www.scholarstrikecanada.ca
Please visit the Facebook event page for listing of available digital teachings/classes: Facebook event here.

You and Your Union

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On March 30, 2017, your Union will hold elections for representation on your Executive and various Committees. Representing your Union can be rewarding, whether it be as a Shop Steward, helping a co-worker Return To Work, bargaining the Collective Agreement, working on Job Evaluations, Health and Safety, or Labour Management; these roles and committees are very important to all of us.

There are many members who have spent time on the Executive and Committees during their career at the College and we thank them for their valuable contribution. If your children have now grown up, your career is a little more manageable, or you wish to expand your skill set, maybe you could find time to help out your fellow co-workers.

While representing your Union is sometimes difficult, it is critical that we have adequate representation. Your Union provides training through education and peer development, as well as leave, either from work for College initiated activities, or Union leave for Union activities.

With many key Union Representatives retiring or set to retire, it is absolutely critical to fill positions being vacated to ensure continuity of valuable knowledge.

Check out our Local’s website for more information, including the Bylaws on the Resources page, which provide specific details about the duties of each elected position.

In solidarity,

Keith Todd

On behalf of the CUPE Executive Team