October 12, 2022 Summary of our General Meeting (Hybrid)

Posted on October 25, 2022 by cozouf

Thank you to everyone who attended our General Meeting. It was nice to see some of you in person.

We welcomed New members Ryan Smith and Yi Fan Yin-Cheng

As part of the regular order of business and Cindy Ozouf gave a presentation on the CUPE National Sectoral Conference held in Ottawa October 3 to 6^th.
Over 700 delegates attended from across Canada representing sectors including the Post Secondary Education (PSE) Sector which includes Universities, Colleges and Cegeps (Quebec) representing CUPE academic workers, researchers, techs and support staff.

Major issues in PSE are most provinces are still seeing further cuts to PSE and tuition continues to increase. Most institutions have an increased reliance on precarious forms of employment. Outsourcing and privatization is another favorite tactic which means contracting sessional instructors and temporary assignments for support workers or contracting out. In partnership with organizations such as Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT), Canadian Federation of Students and other major players, CUPE launched the “Education for All campaign” in 2021 to call on federal, provincial and territorial governments to work together on a national plan for education that is publicly funded, accessible, and high quality. https://www.caut.ca/latest/2021/01/caut-and-partners-launch-education-all-campaign.

Discussion on Sexual Harassment and Violence in our work place and our Union was a major topic of the conference and a workshop was offered to participants on being an ally and not just a bystander. The conference also showcased some inspirational organizing successes across the sectors.

One of the highlights of the event was a blanket ceremony and presentation by Diversity Vice President Debra Merrier. She presented a quilt that will be displayed at the CUPE National Head office and which individual pieces were cut out for the quilt by the National Executive Board together with Debra creating a lovely symbolic blanket. Participants at the conference were invited to write on a ribbon positive words and actions that they would take towards truth and reconciliation and those ribbons will also be attached to the blanket.

Lois Rugg, Melissa Schuurman, Jackie Enders and Cindy Ozouf would like to thank the membership for sending them to participate in the conference as CUPE 4879 delegates.