inSolidarity: Summer 2023 edition

Note: Due to circumstances beyond the control of the inSolidarity Committee, the publication of this issue, originally planned for Spring 2023, was significantly delayed. While some articles may reference earlier events, they are important stories that we are proud to bring to OPSEU/SEFPO members.

Editor’s message

Craig Hadley, inSolidarity EditorWe’re back!I’d like to thank all the participants who attended Editors’ Weekend in November 2022, with special thanks to those who pledged to take back the communicator skills they learned to their locals. As union communicators we play a critical role to keep members informed, educated, and inspired to be the positive change your union needs you to be.I would like to congratulate the new inSolidarity Committee which is a healthy mix of experience and newcomer enthusiasm. Congrats to Mike Hamilton, L376; Christina Chrysler, L417; Marilyn Ott, L110, and Lorinda Seward, L351, your 2022-24 inSolidarity Committee. Our Executive Board Liaison is Tara Maszczakiewicz and our OPSEU/SEFPO staff liaison is Communications Officer Michelle Langlois.The committee will be returning to a hardcopy publication schedule while incorporating web publication for time sensitive stories at opseu.org/inSolidarity. During Convention 2023, we published online daily updates for each day of Convention, including pre-Convention and Awards Night extras.By using this hybrid publication medium, we will ensure the committee can meet event coverage publishing demands in a time-sensitive manner. I’m also excited to announce that the inSolidarity Committee has a budget that includes in-person event coverage. This means we’ll be able to cover more OPSEU/SEFPO events in person, which means better photos, better writing, and more exposure to all the hard work you put in as activists.As always, we welcome any writing contributions you’d like to see published. Simply send the piece to: [email protected] and please include your name and local number.inSolidarity is a member-produced magazine that covers our stories, our work, and most importantly, our collective victories. Submissions can be politically-focused, but they can also be health and wellness pieces, personal anecdotes, poems even recipes for busy activists on the go. OPSEU/SEFPO’s inSolidarity magazine is yours and it should capture the uniqueness of our membership.While your written submissions vary, the inSolidarity Committee has committed to delivering recurring columns in each magazine edition. The simple rationale: it’s hard for readers to develop favorite columns if the columns are not recurring. That means you can come to expect consistency in our work as we strive to keep you informed, educated and hopefully, laughing at some of our humour stories.On behalf of the inSolidarity Committee I would like to thank our readership, Executive Board and OPSEU/SEFPO staff who make it all possible.

Visit inSolidarity online!

Get your inSolidarity news and information on the OPSEU/SEFPO website at opseu.org/inSolidarity.You’ll find articles from our print issues, online exclusives, full Convention coverage, inSolidarity Committee information, our editorial policy, and submission guidelines if you want to contribute an article to inSolidarity.

Intentional representation: Why the future of union leadership needs to be women

Lorinda Seward, inSolidarity CommitteeIn 2015 the newly elected Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, unveiled his cabinet; a gender-balanced one where women held 15 of the 31 cabinet posts. When asked why parity was important to him, in front of a cheering crowd just outside of Rideau Hall, he responded simply: “Because it’s 2015.”Male allies are important in the fight for women’s equality, but there is a price to be paid for allowing men of privilege to speak for feminism. To assume that all it takes to improve the plight of women is to create a gender-balanced cabinet, ignores the structural discrimination and injustices that are embedded within our society.Trudeau’s “because it’s 2015” speech coincided with the first time that a segment of the population became concerned with qualifications for the job. In the history of the Canadian Parliament, no one has ever been as concerned with the qualifications of Cabinet Ministers as they were in 2015.The “male unless otherwise indicated” approach is the result of male dominance in governing bodies worldwide – unions included. When I joined OPSEU/SEFPO in 2000 a woman was president, yes, but over the history of our union, only two of the seven presidents and four of the 11 first vice-presidents have been women or gender diverse people.For groups who have been historically underrepresented in unions, any visibility can feel like a win.  Representation, however, is not enough if it’s not done with intention – like, intentionally making a gender equal cabinet. So why does intentional representation make some people so angry?People tend to assume that their own way of thinking about or doing things is the typical way of thinking about or doing things. In her book Invisible Women, Data Bias in a World Designed for Men, Caroline Criado Perez says that for men, this bias is magnified by a “culture that reflects their experiences back to them, thereby making it seem even more typical”.Perhaps then, even more important than intentional representation is intentional representation in leadership. In the weeks leading up to the 2015 federal election, Trudeau frequently declared himself a “proud feminist”. When privileged white men in leadership positions speak for feminism, they do so from a position of power given to them by their seat at the head of the table.Understanding that systems of discrimination are embedded within social structures, women and gender-diverse people in positions of leadership can create policies that will be of benefit to all genders from a structural point of view. Currently, of the twenty-one Executive Board Members of OPSEU/SEFPO, 11 are women or gender diverse people, including the President and First Vice-President/Treasurer, so the tides are already turning.The late US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg famously said, “When I’m sometimes asked, ‘When will there be enough women on the Supreme Court?’ and I say, ‘When there are nine’, people are shocked. But there’d been nine men, and nobody’s ever raised a question about that”.To that I say, “When there are twenty-one!”

Can term limits bring forth real change in OPSEU/SEFPO?

Michael Hamilton, inSolidarity CommitteeFor as far as I can remember, the motion of introducing term limits for elected positions has always been brought forward to the delegation at Convention. Currently, an elected official holds their position for a period of two years. This starts at the local level and goes all the way up to the role of President of OPSEU/SEFPO.Last year, we had a change of leadership in both the roles of President and First Vice-President/Treasurer of OPSEU/SEFPO with our new President JP Hornick and our new Vice-President/Treasurer Laurie Nancekivell. They had replaced the previous leaders, Smokey Thomas who held the position of President of OPSEU/SEFPO for eight consecutive terms and Eddy Almeida who held his position of VP for five consecutive terms.One of the constitutional amendments that was brought forward at this year’s Convention was to change the length of a term to a period of three years instead of two, with the limitation of holding a maximum of two consecutive terms (for a total of six years in the same position). I can understand why some folks may believe this to be a solution for enacting change within the union. It would provide an opportunity for new faces to step forward and become more involved with the process of how the union works.On the flip side, the proposed change could cause some locals and committees to elect individuals who may not want to take on these types of roles. For some locals, it is hard getting members to even participate in a general membership meetings, especially when they do not have many members in the local. By setting term limits, we could potentially be pushing new people into longer-term roles they may not want or are not ready for.I see both the pros and the cons of the argument. I always encourage members to become more involved in union business. Just recently, my local held our elections for the local executive. I think I was acclaimed as local president for two reasons: first, I believe my members have put their faith in me because I’ve been doing a good job for them. Second, a lot of work goes into the role of being a local president and some members just don’t have the time to dedicate to it when they have other responsibilities.Except for the position of OPSEU/SEFPO President and First Vice-President/Treasurer, every other role in the union is a volunteer position. Executive Board Members, committee members and roles on the local level are all done by members who wanted to step forward to help the union.Could a three-year term help to get more work done? I believe it would, but forcing people to step aside after two terms could end up being detrimental to the work that was done because a new member could be thrust into a role without having the prior knowledge or experience of what is required for the position.The question was brought forth to the membership at Convention and the delegates voted against the Constitutional amendment.What do you think?

Local 417 VP Tabatha Rutledge leading development of province-wide CAAT-A Nursing Caucus

Christina Chrysler, inSolidarity CommitteeHealth care in Ontario has been under attack for years, and the faculty who train aspiring nurses and health care professionals have not been immune. Pushed to the brink, one local vice-president has taken on the monumental task of improving communication between nursing programs across the province.Tabatha Rutledge, Vice President of OPSEU/SEFPO Local 417, is leading the charge to form a province-wide nursing caucus in the union’s College Faculty (CAAT-A) Division. The caucus will consist of CAAT-A members teaching in nursing and health care related programs across Ontario. The goal of the caucus is to enhance communication between institutions to monitor and assess issues that impact the health care field.When asked about this initiative, Rutledge remarked, “I have long felt that there was a need to work collectively across the province to support and represent nursing faculty to the best of our abilities. Nursing faculty positions have been under attack for years and it has to stop!”Rutledge first suggested the development of the nursing caucus at the Region 4 Divisional meeting in the fall of 2022. Since that time, Tabatha has developed and distributed a survey across all of CAAT-A via local presidents and communications officers. The purpose of the survey is to identify people interested in representing their local on the caucus, as well as to shape the goals and actions of this caucus moving forward. While nursing programs are currently the focus of the group, faculty from all health care-related programs and industries are invited to participate. Some problematic areas identified as potential priorities on the survey include academic freedom, workload, health care challenges and their impact on nursing programs, and harassment, bullying, and intimidation in the workplace.The move to develop a caucus specific to nursing and health care has been a long time coming. With so many of the faculty, clinical supervisors, and lab instructors in colleges being active, licensed professionals in their fields, they have repeatedly fallen victim to poor treatment both in their medical careers and in their post-secondary roles. The added pressures during the COVID-19 pandemic have further drained an already exhausted group.Respect for all health care workers should be reflected in post-secondary education. All too often, the power of academic leadership comes from institutional structures that force faculty to work in siloes. The proposed CAAT-A Nursing Caucus aims to limit the barriers to communication to ensure faculty across the province are working together to train the nurses and health care professionals of tomorrow.Rutledge remarked, “As a group we need to work in collaboration, to address common issues and move forward together, not separately, because we are stronger together.”If you are interested in representing your CAAT-A local on this caucus, or if you are a member of the nursing or health care field outside of CAAT-A and would like to contribute, please contact Tabatha Rutledge directly through the Local 417 website: www.slcfaculty.ca.

OPSEU/SEFPO members use vacation to deliver medical supply suitcases to people in need

Marilyn Ott, inSolidarity CommitteeImagine, you are about to embark to the sunny south for a week of diving, snorkeling and the lure of underwater reality. You are about to relax under a canopy of palm trees waving with the wind, recognizing that you, an OPSEU/SEFPO member, have done “good” for the people of that country.A colleague of mine recently took a suitcase of life changing medical supplies to her travel destination during her vacation through an agency called Not Just Tourists (NJT). NJT state that they were “founded with the purpose of getting medical supplies to those who can’t afford them. Ordinary tourists are given the means to change the lives of locals they visit.”NJT was founded in Ontario, and for more than 30 years the organization has helped ordinary tourists deliver more than 10,000 suitcases, and 1,000,000 pounds of medical supplies and equipment to 82 countries. The project does not accept funding, is non-political, and non-religious. Everything is accomplished through volunteers.If you are interested in helping others in some of these countries, get involved! You can prevent the waste of unused medical supplies and bring them to areas of the world where they are most needed. Vacationers who sign up are given suitcases to deliver to clinics in their destination country. You get to know that you have helped another human.If you have any questions, contact Not Just Tourists online at njt.net.

Don’t miss AGO’s exhibition of impressionist masters who transcended barriers of sexism and disability

Rina Gulli, Local 678, Disability Rights Caucus Region 6 RepresentativeCurrently, a rare exhibition is on display at the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) that illuminates the work of female impressionist painters Helen McNicoll (Canadian) and Mary Cassatt (American). Their work demonstrates how these women transcended barriers of sexism and disability, and OPSEU/SEFPO’s Disability Rights Caucus encourages everyone not to miss this opportunity to see these masters at their finest.

The gallery’s curators have brilliantly juxtaposed the work of these two artists, who never met, but have extraordinary similarities and parallels. Both women worked as professional artists at the time of the suffragette movement, and both demonstrate, within their compositions, women doing progressive and non-domestic activities like reading a newspaper, painting or thinking. Both groundbreaking artists brilliantly demonstrate women in artistic and intellectual pursuits. Both had disabilities.The striking similarities of artistic and feminist vision of these two incredible artists is jarring.Equally jarring is their use of brush strokes and colour (McNicoll’s yellows warm sprit and soul), to shed light on the women’s movement to transcend societal expectations, while little global light is shed on these two women themselves as masters of impressionism.Of significant poignancy is that both women had disabilities, with Cassatt having diabetes, rheumatism, neuralgia and cataracts, and in 1917 stopped painting because she was almost blind, and Helen McNicol, deaf at the age of two due to scarlet fever, died at the age of 35 due to complications of diabetes.OPSEU/SEFPO Disability Rights Caucus enthusiastically encourages everyone to partake of this event. This must-see, rare and important exhibit closes at the Art Gallery of Ontario September 4, 2023.

[Insert time for union activities here]

Anonymous OPSEU/SEFPO member“Darn, I’m 15 minutes late for the [insert council here] meeting. It’s conflicting with the [insert regional update] meeting, but the times start half an hour apart, so I can probably make it to both, if I get my name on the agenda first thing…nope, didn’t happen because I was late. Wait! Can I do this all while single handedly parenting a preschooler or two? Probably. Maybe? Ok scratch that…”Tonight, my child fell asleep to the soothing sound of our 2+ hour meeting, volume set to low, of course. It went on through his bath and through dinner, but we needed quorum!How effective can I be as a representative of my union, and of my [insert equity-deserving group within union here] if there are so many meetings for so many worthwhile things, and I want to do it all?I’m a single parent, and all of these meetings seem to take place when I’m putting my child to bed, or when I should be having a relaxing lunch break, but can’t because I work for [insert front line job that doesn’t get breaks here].I’m told that becoming a parent shouldn’t be a barrier to achieving my career and life goals. Prioritize, they say…I’m not sure what I’m intending here. A rant, a vent, a solution?I suppose, just a friendly reminder to think of those who are the least likely to be in a position of privilege when scheduling meetings, and when you wonder why certain people aren’t as involved as they could or should be. Think about:

• Those who don’t work 9-5.
• Those who have blended families.
• Those who are single parents.
• Those who live remotely and must commute long distances (the need for hybrid meetings)
• Those who have dependents/provide elder care
• Those who work in 24/7 workplaces

Signed,[Insert name of empowered single parent working in a front line, 24/7 agency, holding leadership positions on several OPSEU/SEFPO and other committees]

The language of business is not our language

Joe Grogan, Retired OPSEU/SEFPO member, Region 5I want to share with OPSEU/SEFPO members some ideas about how corporate language affects our thoughts, our priorities, our actions – and even turns us into commodities ourselves.As a (retired) public school educator of 36 years at the secondary and post-secondary level, I have seen how this works. At the community college where I taught, the institution was organized into divisions that were encouraged to compete with each other for programs and students. These divisions are called School of Business, School of Health Sciences, etc. In all activities, the administrators of these divisions are coached to emphasize their units as “profit centres”. Any activity that promotes profit is good; anything that doesn’t is considered a “loss”. The programs and courses reflect this corporate reality.  They prepare students almost exclusively for jobs.In one of his press conferences, Premier Doug Ford emphasized that the goal of education is jobs, not the education of the student. Students are viewed as funding units for colleges, not people for whom the educational system was established to promote the public good and quality of life for students, faculty, support staff and administration.At one stage in my college career, a dean of the business school, in response to a problem that he was trying solve, stated, “The problem here is that we need to run this place more like a business.” In recent years, we have seen how students have been considered clients, not students and people.This is absurd! By now, we are all aware of the expression, “We all need to do more with less”. In the auto industry where this started in the 1980s, this approach was called “kaizen”, a term from Japanese business culture that means “good change” or “continuous improvement”.Meanwhile, administrators at all public education levels cut full-time teachers, hired part-time teachers at lower salaries with few, if any, benefits while giving themselves hefty salary increases. At the college where I taught, 75 per cent of the faculty are now part-time and only about 25 per cent are full-time.Furthermore, we have seen how online learning has such appeal to administrators who get more control of everything and can hire more part-time staff, weakening the faculty and our union. Part-timers can be played off against full-time staff since they are vulnerable, but also a possible replacement labour force. Another reason administrators love the digital revolution: higher production, lower costs and more control – especially through enhanced electronic monitoring.The same issues can be seen in the public health care system, where patients have become clients. Medicine is being run more like a business, not a public service to promote the general good. Most people have noticed the decline in health care services. Nurses are treated as expendable, with huge workloads leading to burnout and resignations. Part-time nursing staff must seek employment at two or three hospitals to equate a full-time income. Ottawa and Queen’s Park are the source of the hurt.Every day, when we encounter mind-bending effects of corporate business language, we must understand what is happening and use our union’s resources to reverse this psychological attack on us and our quality of life.

I Craig your pardon? Back to the office, back to absurdity

Craig Hadley, inSolidarity EditorI Craig Your Pardon? is a new series by inSolidarity Editor Craig Hadley, taking apart the nonsense in our workplaces and our lives.If you work in an office environment, you’re likely experiencing a heavy push by management to return to the office full-time or a majority in-person hybrid model. You’re also likely seeing your company leadership justifying the return to office as “family” getting back together, reuniting teams or coming together to collaborate on ideas.Here’s an idea: replace selling this sham as a fun reunion and just be honest with people. Start by telling the workers we have buildings that need to be filled, lunches that need to be purchased, and of course, management jobs to be justified.For most office jobs the requirement to regularly attend a physical workplace is as dated as early assembly lines from the industrial revolution. Work-from-home technology has been available for well over a decade, but most workplace architects rarely include what’s good for the worker or society in their blueprints. It took a pandemic for the world to realize that most modern jobs can be performed anywhere, which, amidst a housing crisis, raises the idea that office towers could be best utilized for housing, eliminating unnecessary travel. The worst part is that decision-makers are trying to spin their message of in-person attendance as being fun, hip and comforting.I Craig your pardon?There is nothing fun, hip or comforting about any workplace, and anyone who is selling it that way is killing their managerial credibility. Office workers have become accustomed to working from home, and with many in the workforce being former latchkey kids who thrive on independence, the sell-job simply isn’t working. It’s like being told the tub of “frozen dessert” in your freezer is actually ice cream. It’s not real, just like management’s justification to work from an office isn’t real. Frankly, it’s as greasy as the congealed vegetable oil frozen dessert is made with.And just to be clear, there’s nothing wrong with going into the office if there’s a purpose.  There’s no purpose going to the office for a meeting where all participants are physically in the building, but you use Zoom anyways.Welcome back to a post-COVID world plagued with inflation, wage freezes and a soaring cost of living.  Welcome back to a world where we leverage technology to replace traditional face-to-face meetings but insist the participants are in the office building. Welcome back to absurdity.

A Celebration of Black History Month with OPSEU/SEFPO

Michael Hamilton, inSolidarity Committee, Coalition of Racialized Workers Region 5 RepresentativeFor the first time in three years, the OPSEU/SEFPO Coalition of Racialized Workers (CoRW) was able to have an in-person gathering for their Black History Month events in February 2023. As we all know, the COVID-19 pandemic had put a damper on in-person events taking place during the first two years of the pandemic. The Coalition held events in 2021 and 2022 virtually. This time around, it was a hybrid event, and it was a smashing success!The theme for the 2023 events was “Who We Are: The Power of Black Resistance”. I must say, as the Region 3 representative for the Coalition, it gave me a lot of pride knowing that the Coalition was able to present our experiences to the membership again. There were two events that took place on February 24 and 25, 2023 with the first being held at the Region 5 Wellesley office and the second at the Region 2 Hamilton office.The goal of the events was to show the OPSEU/SEFPO membership that the Coalition has been at the forefront of bringing equity issues to the table. The CoRW has been a champion of the Social Mapping Project which has identified gaps and lack of representation of racialized members in the union.The event included guest speakers LolaBunz a multidisciplinary artist, Evelyn Myrie, CEO of EMpower Strategy Group and Linda V. Carter, a director, writer, actor and narrator. Each of them provided a unique perspective on the difficulties of bringing equity and inclusion into the conversation. The overarching message was that change is going to be hard. Now, more than ever, leaders are needed to give a voice to those who do not have one. We all have power in the words we speak and the actions we take.The CoRW has taken pride in knowing that we are the voice for racialized members within OPSEU/SEFPO and our respective communities. The events were indicative of that with our Region 4 representative Renford Thomas hosting the Wellesley event and one of our Region 5 representatives Butterfly GoPaul hosting the Hamilton event in conjunction with our Region 2 representatives Vanessa Edwards and Maxwell Onukwufor.I feel it is important to reiterate that the CoRW is here to support our fellow racialized brothers and sisters in OPSEU/SEFPO. Our chair Peter Thompson has made it clear that the union needs to do a better job at recognizing racialized members. This shouldn’t just be highlighted in February because of Black History Month – this should be an ongoing conversation all year round.It is great to see that the new administration has put more of an equity lens focus on bringing more racialized members to the table to ensure that OPSEU/SEFPO can better represent them. Again, change isn’t easy, but it is necessary, and hopefully we will start to see better representation in our union’s leadership.

Spending time in quiet solitude uncovers rich stories of union activists

Lorinda Seward, inSolidarity CommitteeAs the OPSEU/SEFPO inSolidarity Committee’s newest member, I’ve been asked several times about my motivation for joining. As an introvert, I spend a lot of time in my head, which breeds introspection and creativity, and I’ve spent much of my life looking for meaningful ways to tell stories.Stories of union activism can motivate and inspire us. But they can also serve as an important lesson. As George Santayana reminds us: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”.I am an audio snob. It’s not that my tastes are particularly superior to others, but my equipment is.  From the diameter of the driver of a headset to the sensitivity to the impedance, to the frequency – I will pay ridiculous amounts of money for exceptional headphones. But headphones also serve another purpose.Headphones are the universal symbol for ‘please leave me alone’.Like many introverts, I take comfort in my own thoughts and ideas. My mom said I was shy when I was young. As an adult, people call me quiet and sometimes aloof. Large groups of people drain me. I prefer the company of a small group, and solitude recharges me.So, how did I, a gold medal introvert, end up as the newest member of OPSEU/SEFPO’s provincial inSolidarity Committee? The simple answer is that my friend and fellow committee member, Chris Chrysler nominated me, I accepted and was elected by the attendees at Editor’s Weekend.The longer answer stems from the introspection and creativity that has developed from my introversion. I began playing the guitar and writing songs as a kid as a way to process emotion and tell stories. Over the last decade, I discovered photography and became enchanted with the way a still image could tell a complete story and move one to tears all at the same time. Most recently I’ve become interested in videography as a way of communicating stories in a creative and meaningful way.This is my reason for wanting to join this committee – to tell the stories of union activists in creative and meaningful ways. Just as my journey to the inSolidarity Committee was long and winding, so too are the stories of our members. The history of the labour movement in Canada is rich with tales of strength and solidarity in the fight for rights such as workplace safety, minimum wage, employment insurance, maternity and parental benefits, and so on.While it can be tempting to view these hard-fought rights as immutable, neoliberal policies that increasingly resemble those of fascist regimes are becoming more commonplace. We must be unyielding in our commitment to the rights of workers. We must inspire each other with our own stories of activism.These are the stories I want to tell. With my headphones on.

Sharing local success: Inclusive communication strategy fosters long-term member engagement

Christina Chrysler, i