Application form and call-outThe next Region 4 Weekend Educational is taking place November 8-9, 2025 at the Holiday Inn Kingston Waterfront, 2 Princess St., Kingston, ON K7L 1A2The courses being offered are:
- Stewards 2: Facing the Employer and Building Member Involvement
- Stewards 3: Dealing with Discipline
- Stewards 3: Dealing with Discipline (being offered in French)
- Health and Safety: Level 2
- Duty to Accommodate Part 2
- Treasurers
Applications must be received in the Ottawa Regional Office no later than Friday, October 10, 2025.Members are responsible for making their own reservations directly with the hotel by Monday October 20, 2025. Please make your hotel reservations as soon as you submit your application to us.Local Presidents need to be aware that according to Board Policy, their own Local is responsible for each of its members who attend a course. When an applicant does not attend and the Regional Office has not been so advised 48 hours prior to the commencement of the Educational, the Local will be assessed a $50 penalty, to be deducted from the next Local rebate. Extenuating circumstances will be taken into consideration.All hotel bills must be paid upon checkout, and you will be reimbursed on submission of your expense claim on the OPSEU/SEFPO member portal. Members who live within 60 km of the Hotel are entitled to accommodation for Saturday night only. Expenses for family and dependent care will be paid or provided in accordance with OPSEU/SEFPO’s Policy (please see the attached expense guidelines).The Policy regarding payment of wages at the Educational remains the same since it was changed at the Annual Convention held in April 1999. Please see the attached information regarding this matter.Please distribute the enclosed forms to interested members in your Local.
Please submit completed applications to [email protected] by Friday, October 10, 2025.If you have any questions, please contact:The
Ottawa Regional Office at
1-844-765-1416 or [email protected]In solidarity,
The Region Four Education Committee
Course Descriptions
Stewards 2: Facing the Employer and Building Member Involvement
Prerequisite: Stewards 1/New Stewards OrientationThis 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.
Stewards 3: Dealing with Discipline (offered in both English and French)
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.
Health and Safety: Level 2
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 JHSC’s 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’s Level 1 course and assumes that participants have a basic knowledge of the Occupational Health and Safety Act.
Duty to Accommodate 2: Making Accommodation Work
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.
Local Treasurers Course
This course is aimed at Local Treasurers and Trustees who are either NEW to the role or experienced members who are seeking a “refresher course”. The goal is to give the necessary tools and education to Local Treasurers and Trustees in order for them to fulfill their roles in the Local. It will also draw on members’ experiences to solve problems occurring with the administration of Local funds.
Expense Guidelines
Registration
- Application forms must be received by the Ottawa Regional Office no later than Friday, October 10, 2025
Accommodation
- A block of rooms has been reserved at the Holiday Inn Kingston Waterfront, 2 Princess St., Kingston ON, K7L 1A2 at a negotiated nightly rate of $169 per night plus applicable taxes
- Members who live within 60 km of the event are ineligible for accommodation on Friday, November 7, 2025 as per OPSEU/SEFPO policy
- Members are responsible for making their own accommodation and payment arrangements. Accommodations must be booked no later than Monday October 20, 2025. Reservations made after this date are subject to availability and the negotiated room rate may note apply.
- If members are unable to attend, they are responsible for canceling their
- Members will be reimbursed at the single accommodation rate of the OPSEU/SEFPO conference rate negotiated with the hotel
Family Care (Child/Elder/Dependant)
- Members requiring childcare on site must submit the Childcare Registration Package with their application
- Members will be reimbursed for childcare at $15.00 an hour for a maximum of 12 hours and $40.00 overnight, to a maximum of $220.00 per 24 hour period if childcare on site is not used
- Childcare claims will be honoured for children up to and including age 17, for whom the member is guardian
- Friends, family, professional, commercial services or any other satisfactory arrangement may provide care to the member making the claim. Claims may be verified and must be signed by the service provider
- Members who have responsibility for elderly/dependent persons (over the age of 17) wherever the service is provided, at home, in town or out of town, will be reimbursed for elder/dependent care at $15.00 an hour for a maximum of 12 hours, and $40 overnight, to a maximum of $220 a day
Cancellations
- Notification by members to cancel attendance should be received by both the Local President and the Regional Office no later than 48 hours before end of last business day before scheduled event
- When a member does not attend and has not cancelled as per the guidelines, the member will be assessed a $50 penalty, deducted from the local rebate (extenuating circumstances will be taken into consideration)
Lost Wages
- In order to claim for lost wages, proof from your employer that you were scheduled to work and the amount of lost wages incurred must be provided. Own time is not paid
- You are asked to make every effort to rearrange your schedule to avoid lost wage claims
- Depending on demand, individual applicants may be limited to one lost wage claim for a weekend educational per calendar year as the Regional Education Committee endeavors to distribute lost wages equitably among locals, taking into consideration equity criteria, the educational needs of locals and the region, and special circumstances that may apply
- Time off arrangements are to be made by the member including requesting time off through the event application. No time off requests will be submitted automatically by OPSEU/SEFPO
Expense Forms
- No meals are being provided by OPSEU/SEFPO at this Meals will be reimbursable at the rate of $22 for breakfast, $30 for lunch and $39 for dinner
Advances
- Members may request an advance to cover costs related to accommodation, mileage and meal expenses by filling out the Advance Request Form
- Advances are not provided for lost
Wage Claim Policy
A resolution was passed at Convention 1999 to reinstate a member’s ability to claim for lost wages to attend Educationals.The thinking at the time was that is wasn’t fair for members who work weekends to have to take vacation days or comp days to attend an educational when members who don’t work weekends didn’t have a problem attending on their regularly scheduled time off. On the other hand, there were some who felt it wasn’t fair for those who work weekends to be paid to attend an educational and still get their time off during the week. Clearly there were two sides to the issue, but the delegates decided to pay time off for members who work shifts.At the next meeting of the officers, they decided that the intent of the motion will have been honoured if a region dedicates 10% of its education budget for lost wages. The officers left it up to each region to establish their own rules about how to pay lost wage claims. In Region Four we place a lot of importance on educating our members. We will do our best to compensate those who need time off while remaining within budget.The Education Committee has decided that it will dedicate $10,000 to pay lost wages this year. As two Regional Educationals are being planned, each will have $5,000 allotted to pay for lost wages.
The money will be distributed among all wage claimers – pro-rated up to 100% of actual wages for each educational. For example, this means that if $6,000 in lost wages is claimed for the Spring Educational, each of the wage claimers will get 83.3% of their claim. Hopefully the local would see fit to top up the difference.This formula was used for previous Educationals and has worked reasonably well. However, the following issues need to be addressed:
- The request for time off or, at the very least, an intention to claim for time off must be submitted at the time that the registration for the educational is submitted.
One time a number of wage claims came in after an educational, when the members submitted their expense claims. The members explained they did not know when they submitted their registration forms whether or not they would be scheduled to work. If the work schedule isn’t made up yet and your members know they wish to attend the weekend educational being held, then they should ask their employer
not to be scheduled for work that weekend. Furthermore, late wage claims make it impossible for the staff coordinating the educational to let others know in advance how much their claim is actually worth.
- Proof of time off in the form of a letter from the employer must accompany the claim – lost wages will only be paid for prescheduled shifts on Saturday and Sunday (at straight time).
Time off will not be paid for travel time on Friday and time off will not be paid for anything other than straight time. The letter from the employer must give full details of the basis for the claim.
