Region 2 will be holding both its Spring and Summer Weekend Education Sessions at the Unifor Family Education Centre, 115 Shipley Ave, Port Elgin, Ontario on the following dates.
- The Spring session takes place May 29 – 31 (Application deadline is Friday, Apr 24 at 4:30 pm)
- The Summer session takes place June 26 – 28 (Application deadline is Friday, Apr 24 at 4:30 pm)
Members may attend one weekend only. Dismantling Systemic Racism Program (DSRP) training sessions are being held on the Friday before each Weekend educational for members who have not yet received their DSRP Training. (The DSRP Training will only be available for members who have not yet received this training)
To apply for either the Spring or Summer session, please complete the following by Friday, April 24, 2026 4:30 pm
- Online Registration Application Form
- If required: OPSEU Human Rights Accommodation Request Form
- If required: Advance Request Form
- If required: Child Care Registration Forms – Please submit to [email protected]
Important:
- In person attendance only (except for Stewards 1)
- Late registrations will not be accepted
- Member Portal registration is not available
- OPSEU/SEFPO will reimburse lost wages for DSRP Training (Friday)
- Locals may access the 80/20 fund for time off for members to attend the Weekend educational (Sat/Sun)
Please read the Call Out package thoroughly. Any additional requests for information can be directed to [email protected].
For more information on the Unifor Family Education Centre visit Unifor Family Education Centre.
In Solidarity,
Region 2 Education Committee
Spring-session courses
Saturday, May 30 (9 am – 4:30 pm) and Sunday, May 31 (9 am-1 pm)
- Stewards 1: Making a Difference in the Workplace – Hybrid (Bring a copy of your Collective Agreement)
- Stewards 3: Dealing with Discipline (Prerequisites: Stewards 1, Stewards 2 – Bring a copy of your Collective Agreement)
- Health and Safety: Level 2 (Prerequisite: Health and Safety Level 1)
- Human Rights, Union Rights and Global Solidarity
- Social Media for Union Activists
- Advanced Grievance Handling for Union Building (Prerequisite: Basic Grievance Handling)
- Duty to Accommodate 2 – Making Accommodation Work (Prerequisite: Duty to Accommodate 1)
Summer-session courses
Saturday, June 27 (9 am – 4:30 pm) and Sunday, June 28 (9 am – 1 pm)
- Stewards 1: Making a Difference in the Workplace – Hybrid (Bring a copy of your Collective Agreement)
- Stewards 2: Facing the Employer, Building Member Involvement (Prerequisite: Stewards 1, Bring a copy of your collective agreement)
- Union Skills for Workplace Investigations
- Basic Grievance Handling for Union Building
- Health and Safety: Level 1
- Dealing with Workplace Conflict
- Duty to Accommodate 1 – A Tool for Inclusive Workplaces
Course descriptions
Basic Grievance Handling for Union Building
Participants should bring their Collective Agreements to the course.
This course is designed to examine the grievance process from a workplace organizing perspective. Grievances are opportunities to build the union. This hands-on course helps members analyze situations to decide whether a grievance is the best approach. Participants will learn about different types of grievances and the remedies available through the grievance/arbitration process. They will develop technical skills in writing and processing grievances, and practice communication to assess whether a member’s rights have been violated.
Advanced Grievance Handling for Union Building
Prerequisite: Basic Grievance Handling
Does your local have a grievance committee? Can your experience in handling a grievance help to build the local? Can you use your knowledge of common grievance issues to raise awareness at demand setting meetings? Have you ever thought of what it is like to be on the Employer side of the table? These are some of the topics that will be explored in the Advanced Grievance Handling for Union Building course. You will also get the opportunity to practice being on the Union’s team and the Employer’s Team as you work through some scenarios. Building on the Basic Grievance Handling for Union Building course, this course focuses on expanding both the steward’s and Local’s ability to process grievances from start to finish. Through active interviewing process, participants will explore how to identify grievances, practice negotiating settlements, and draft realistic, enforceable grievance settlements. Participants should bring their Collective Agreements to the course.
Dealing with Workplace Conflict
Every day, in our lives, we have to deal with situations of conflict. It may be with our family, our work colleagues, our friends, our peers, or our supervisors. In this course we will define and analyse conflict and look at the range of processes aimed at alleviating or eliminating sources of conflict. There are many tools available to people in conflict. How and when they are used depends on several factors that will be perused. We will also look at mediation and its role in conflict resolution.
Duty to Accommodate 1 – A Tool for Inclusive Workplaces
Provincial legislation and existing case law require employers and unions to provide accommodation short of undue hardship. This interactive course examines the roles and responsibilities of the employer, the union, and the member in accommodating members with disabilities and all other protected groups under the Ontario Human Rights Code. It builds activists’ skills to support members requiring an accommodation, and to deal with employer resistance to accommodation in the workplace.
Duty to Accommodate 2 Making Accommodation Work
Prerequisite: Duty to Accommodate 1
Does your employer balk at providing proper accommodations? Has your employer challenged the medical information the member has provided? Is the employer asking members for independent medical exams? Do you hear grumblings from co-workers about the number of accommodations in the workplace?
Building on the skills and information in the first course, “Duty to Accommodate: A tool for inclusive workplaces”, Making Accommodation Work: Duty to Accommodate 2 examines the challenges of supporting a worker in need of an accommodation. This course investigates strategies and skills for gathering information, challenging employer tactics used to prevent accommodations, developing a fair accommodation plan, and communicating with co-workers to build more workplace solidarity.
While the course focuses mainly on the practical aspects of accommodation due to disability, many of the issues such as Collective Agreement language, attendance management programs, and co-worker resentment apply to accommodation based on sex and family status as well.
Note: Due to the volume of information about Duty to Accommodate, it is strongly advised that participants take “Duty to Accommodate: A Tool for Inclusive Workplaces” before Duty to Accommodate 2.
Health and Safety: Level 1
This course is designed for members and stewards who want to become more involved in health and safety activities in their workplace. There is a strong focus on health and safety legislation to enable participants to use the legislation effectively in their own workplaces.
Participants work in groups to explore the legislation and to gain a better understanding of their rights and employers’ obligations under the Occupational Health and Safety Act and its regulations. Participants are introduced to the concepts of hazard identification, assessment and control, and develop a greater understanding of the components of an effective health and safety system.
Health and Safety: Level 2
Prerequisite: Health and Safety Level 1
This course is designed for Health and Safety committee members and union activists with a strong interest in Health and Safety. Participants learn how to be more effective members of their JHSCs as they work in small groups learning how to better identify, categorize, and control hazards. Using case studies and examples from their own workplaces, participants learn how to improve workplace inspections, and how to begin accident and illness investigations. The course offers the opportunity to prioritize and strategize around health and safety problems and to address problems specific to participants’ own workplaces. The course builds on the material in OPSEU/SEFPO’s Level 1 course and assumes that participants have a basic knowledge of the Occupational Health and Safety Act.
Human Rights, Union Rights and Global Solidarity
Faced with governments pushing austerity around the world, global solidarity is more important than ever. Why do we find ourselves fighting the same fights fought more than 30, 50, or even 100 years ago? This course explores what our roles are as individuals, union members, and community citizens, in the ongoing fight for fairness, equality, and justice.
Participants will draw critical links between human rights, union rights, and global solidarity, and will be asked to commit to collective action to build solidarity locally and globally. By the end of the course, participants will be able to recognize and challenge privilege and oppression, know the differences between charity and solidarity, and will be better able to challenge the current austerity agenda.
Social Media for Union Activists
The increasing use of social media has become a reality in our union work. With this reality, come both pitfalls and opportunities. “Social Media for Union Activists” will explore what social media is and how to spot both the opportunities and difficulties when using social media. Recognizing that social media is an important part of many of our members lives, participants will examine what risks are inherent when using social media and what case law has been telling us. Participants will explore what makes a successful social media campaign and develop some practical applications for social media use within Locals. Upon completing the course participants will be able to confidently use social media in their union work.
Stewards 1: Making a Difference in the Workplace
This course will build and strengthen the skills of a steward. Participants will explore the role of the steward throughout the bargaining cycle, including organizing their local, having effective one-on-one conversations, developing a communications strategy to enlist diverse member involvement, and learning strategies for everyday workplace problems.
Throughout the course, participants are supported as they develop a profile of their members, find resources and information in OPSEU/SEFPO, and understand their role in the grievance process. Stewards 1 is a prerequisite to Stewards 2. Participants should bring their Collective Agreements to the course.
Stewards 2: Facing the Employer, Building Member Involvement
Prerequisite: Stewards 1
This revised follow-up to Stewards 1 focuses on investigating and writing a grievance, facing management, and involving members in worksite action. Participants will use their own collective agreements to identify grievances. They will become immersed in an evolving case study in order to interview a grievor, write up a grievance, face the employer at a Step 1 and make a presentation on safety issues to the union side of the Joint Health and Safety Committee. They will examine the elements of effective mobilization and develop a campaign strategy for a local. Participants should bring their Collective Agreements to the course.
Stewards 3: Dealing with Discipline
Prerequisites: Stewards 1 and Stewards 2
This is an advanced level steward course. It is suggested that participants take Stewards 1 and Stewards 2 prior to signing up for this program. Dealing with Discipline is a skills and knowledge focused workshop that will assist union activists in their duties representing members that are facing discipline up to and including dismissal. The course bridges concepts from Stewards 1 and 2, Basic and Advanced Grievance Handling and Workplace Investigations. Participants should bring their Collective Agreements to the course.
Union Skills for Workplace Investigations
Have you ever been called, at the last minute, to the employer’s office to “represent” a member who is being accused of serious wrong-doings? Have you wondered what to do and how best to represent this person, particularly if you suspect that they may have broken a rule or two?
This hands-on course takes you step by step through a workplace investigations process. It starts with the first contact with the member, through to the response to the investigation findings, with lots of practice in between. Through case studies and a variety of active exercises you’ll practice interviewing the member, anticipating the investigator’s questions, preparing the member for meeting the investigator, taking good notes at the meeting, and working with the member to respond to the findings. The Resource Toolkit has additional information about investigations in different sectors, use of surveillance, and other issues.
Expense claims
Expense claims are to be submitted online through the OPSEU/SEFPO Member Portal. If you have not used the OPSEU/SEFPO Member Portal, instructions can be found at the following links:
- OPSEU/SEFPO Member Portal – How To Register, Update Address, Dependant And Direct Deposit Information – OPSEU/SEFPO
- Online Expense Claim Tutorial
Travel
Round-trip mileage at the rate of:
- 60 cents/km if driving alone;
- 65 cents/km if driving with 1 OPSEU/SEFPO member as a passenger;
- 70 cents/km if driving with 2 OPSEU/SEFPO members as passengers;
- 75 cents/km if driving with 3 OPSEU/SEFPO members as passengers;
- 80 cents/km if driving with 4 OPSEU/SEFPO members as passengers.
Transportation
If you require transportation assistance please indicate this in the applicable section of the Registration Application form.
Parking
Parking is free at the Unifor Family Education Centre.
Overnight accommodation
The 60km rule is waived for this event. All members are entitled to overnight accommodation for the duration of the event. OPSEU/SEFPO will be handling guest room bookings with costs billed directly to the primary account for members only (Note: Members are responsible for incidentals).
Shared guest rooms – A limited number of guest rooms are available on-site and we will not be utilizing overflow hotel accommodations. Members willing to share their guest room with another member should indicate the member’s name they’ve made arrangements with when completing the Registration Application. Please DO NOT contact Unifor directly regarding your reservation.
Meals
Guest room rates include 3 meals a day commencing with dinner on the day of check-in and ending with lunch on the day of check-out. Meals are provided “cafeteria-style” in the Unifor Dining Hall. Unregistered companions/family members aged 12+ yrs (excluding member dependents registered for On-Site Child Care) are required to pay $75 pp/night, plus taxes, upon check-in (non-reimbursable).
Meal pass – All attendees are required to register/check-in at the front desk upon arrival and obtain their week-end meal passes for themselves and family members. Meal passes must be presented in the cafeteria in order to access meals.
The following meals will be provided and therefore cannot be expensed:
Spring session meals
- Thursday, May 28, 2026 – Supper (for DSRP attendees – available until 7:30 pm)
- Friday, May 29, 2026 – Breakfast & Lunch (for DSRP attendees), Supper (available until 7:30 pm)
- Saturday, May 30, 2026 – Breakfast, Lunch, Supper
- Sunday, May 31, 2026 – Breakfast & Bagged “To Go” lunch
Summer session meals
- Thursday, June 25, 2026 – Supper (for DSRP attendees – available until 7:30 pm)
- Friday, June 26, 2026 – Breakfast & Lunch (for DSRP attendees), Supper (available until 7:30 pm)
- Saturday, June 27, 2026 – Breakfast, Lunch, Supper
Human rights accommodation
“The Accommodation Fund was created to encourage and facilitate greater participation of those covered under the Ontario Human Rights Code. The fund will cover extra costs related to a member’s disability, illness or other grounds under the Code. For example, the Fund would cover the extra cost of a fridge in a guestroom for a member required to store medications at a particular temperature.
Requests for accommodation can be identified on your application of the Human Rights Accommodation Request Form, included in the call out/registration email. This form can be sent directly to the Equity Unit by email: [email protected] and [email protected].
Advance requests
Applicants may apply to receive an advance to cover mileage, meals, and overnight accommodation by filling out the Advance Request Form.
On-site child care
Pre-registration is mandatory by completing the childcare registration forms included in the callout/registration email. Completed forms must be emailed to [email protected] by Friday, April 24, 2026 at 4:30 pm.
Cancellations must be emailed to [email protected] a minimum of 24-hours before the event. Parents must be on-site at all times when utilizing child care provided by OPSEU/SEPFO.
Children who are not pre-registered for child care cannot be accommodated if brought to the event.
Family attendant care (child / elder / dependent)
When care is provided in your home:
Members will be reimbursed for Family Care at the rate of $15.00 per hour to a maximum of $220.00 within a 24-hour period, while doing union business. It is recognized that to guarantee meaningful access to union activities, child care both day and night may be necessary. Please specify hours claimed for each day.
Members are entitled to reimbursement of reasonable costs of family/attendant care (child/elder/dependent) provided by someone other than their partners/spouses as a result of absences from home arising from the conduct of union business. Such allowances are not intended to reimburse members for family care expenses that they would have normally incurred as a result of employment, except where the absence exceeds the normal work day or week.
Claims must be signed by the service provider and may be verified by Head Office before payment is made.
Cancellation policy
In accordance with OPSEU/SEFPO Policy, notification by a member to cancel course attendance
should be received by the Regional Office no later than 24 hours prior to commencement of the event.
When a member does not attend and the Regional Office has not been notified by the deadline, the member will be assessed a $50 penalty. Extenuating circumstances will be taken into consideration.
Cancellation notifications are to be sent to [email protected].
Scent and nut-free policy
Workers are becoming sensitized to chemicals, scented products, and certain foods such as peanuts, peanut butter, pecans, walnuts, many chocolate bars and energy/nutrition bars.
For many individuals, attending conferences, meetings, etc., and being exposed to perfumes, other strong scents and certain foods can pose serious health risks such as asthma attacks, respiratory problems and/or migraine headaches.
In the interest of the health and safety of those whose health may suffer from any of these exposures, we ask that you refrain from wearing or using scented products, peanut and nut products at all OPSEU/SEFPO events and locations.