Dear Members,
We are approaching the summer quickly, when children are out of school and many folks head off for vacation. When I was working auxiliary not long ago, this time of year was spent booking multitudes of shifts and planning for a break in October. Whatever the next few months may look like for you, please try to join your 391 family in Stanley Park on Sunday July 7th. We are planning a picnic from 11am to 3pm – if you are able to drop by for a bit before a Sunday afternoon shift we would love to see you.
I returned this week from Kelowna where I attended the CUPE Western Municipal Conference. It was a great opportunity to connect with other local executive officers from municipalities in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and of course BC. We share so many of the same challenges and talking with library workers in systems across the region is always illuminating. I also attended an informative research session regarding precarious workers, and was very inspired by the Sister Leaders panel. I was reminded of how important it is to be politically active – we effectively elect our employers – by hearing the struggles coming down the line for those folks in provinces with conservative governments.
Other activities have included the regular OHS, Executive, Grievance, and Union Management committee meetings, as well as working with the Bargaining Committee. We anticipate having our member survey ready to go in early July, thanks to some great help from CUPE National, so please keep your eyes tuned for that. Related to bargaining, I attended a CUPE South Coast Municipal & Library All Presidents Meeting in May with another one coming next week. These meetings are related to the cost-share campaign we all signed on to last year, working to illustrate how CUPE municipal workers make our communities a great place to live. Check out the video here if you haven’t yet seen it. Better Services. Better Communities.
As promised, we have report-backs from the CUPE BC Convention delegation – you can find them on our website here. It was a month ago now, and we have already begun to turn our minds towards the CUPE National Convention happening in October. We will be electing our delegation for that at the July membership meeting. A call out for interested members will be following this update in the next day or two. We submitted three resolutions to Metro Vancouver District Council (thank you VP Tanya Ferry for putting them together); all three were endorsed by Metro, which is the first step to getting them on the floor at National.
There is always more to tell you about! Reach out with any questions, as always.
Yours in solidarity,
Kari