OPSEU/SEFPO represents approximately 180,000 members across Ontario comprising full-and part-time workers of diverse backgrounds. Members work in several sectors including the Ontario Public Services, Community Colleges, agencies within the Broader Public Sector, in Corrections and the health care sector.The Social Mapping Project (SMP) is a large-scale study of the demographics of the OPSEU/SEFPO membership. The goal of the project has always remained the same: to identify gaps and barriers to make the union more inclusive, and to update resolutions and bylaws to better serve all members, and particularly those of seven identified equity groups (Indigenous persons, Black and racialized persons, disabled persons, Francophones, 2SLGBTQIA+ persons, young persons and women).In response to the changing demographics of Ontario, OPSEU/SEFPO identified a need to improve and monitor its services to the membership. Such a move has increased inclusion, resulted in a better understanding of the membership and, ultimately, put OPSEU/SEFPO on the map as a champion of human rights.
2024-2025 SMP
OPSEU/SEFPO partnered with Blueprint, a nonprofit research and evaluation organization to conduct the latest SMP. Blueprint’s mission is to use evidence to help decision makers drive social change. As mandated by OPSEU/SEFPO bylaws, the union passed a resolution to conduct the SMP every 5 years. Therefore, a previous iteration of the SMP occurred in 2019-2020. Originally conceived of as a membership survey in 2010, the SMP has evolved in 2024-2025 to include some qualitative research components, such as discovery interviews with equity-group members and invitations to the membership to give feedback outside of the survey on barriers to participation.
Recommendations
The following recommendations comprise policies and procedures with room for improvement as well as overall structural and organizational recommendations. Note that these are high-level recommendations and that more granular, operational recommendations should come from the SMP Taskforce, equity committees and caucuses based on the data provided in the final report.
- Members who are not citizens would like additional citizenship and status-related support in providing members (who are unlikely to seek support themselves), pathways and easily accessible information on advocacy, worker rights and local representatives.
- For increased accessibility, more events, educationals, trainings and meetings could be made hybrid.
- As a relatively new program, in the short term (0-3 years) DSRP training could be better advertised to increase awareness among those who did not take the training, the majority of whom were unaware of it (55%), and to increase the number of leaders who take the training. In addition, training could be offered more frequently, and in accessible locations to remove location barriers.
In the medium (3-5 years) to long term (5-7 years), the training could be offered in stages (e.g., beginner, intermediate, advanced).
- The SMP revealed that there is a general lack of awareness and confusion about Election Processes with awareness higher about equity committees and caucuses than regional elections. Election processes could be standardized, especially for equity committees and caucuses such that only members who self-identify as equity-group members are eligible to vote within equity committee and caucus election. As part of the standardization process, OPSEU/SEFPO may seek to implement proportionate representation, both raising awareness about what that entails and outlining operational processes.
- Communications are a challenge at different levels of the organization. Members often do not know (have a lack of awareness) about union offerings, trainings, accommodations, etc., or where to start to look for them, especially new members. Building out a strategy for communication could also foster more trust. There is an opportunity for strengthening trust among levels of union governance, and among different Equity and other interest groups.
- Improved website navigation and toolkits for members could aid in information transfer (e.g., toolkits for onboarding new members, about elections processes, for new regional/local leaders, for those interested in running for leadership roles, as well as toolkits for those who have been long-standing union members on common misconceptions or FAQ about the union).
- Emails from JP Hornick, OPSEU/SEFPO President proved to have high uptake across the organization and could be leveraged for large-scale mobilization. Additionally, targeted communication from Equity Committee and Caucus members, local and regional members also enabled broader uptake of the survey.
- Future SMP-related opportunities:
- Increase the interval between SMS to a minimum of 7 years to see “generational” turnover. While we were still able to see differences in the past 4.5 years, 7 years would yield even better data.
- Increase the duration of the research portion of the project, such that the timelines are a minimum of 18 months (for interviews, survey in field, monitoring and analysis). For 2024-2025 the entire duration of the project was 9 months, including member engagement, promotion, survey in field, monitoring, analysis and reporting. This was a capacity strain on the SMP Taskforce members as well as the research team.
- To strengthen the reliability of nonresponse bias analysis, collect more socio- demographic data through existing infrastructures such as the member portal (e.g., in line with the Labour Force Survey: age, gender, immigration status). All data collection can be optional to aid in trust building. Such a measure would also enable OPSEU/SEFPO to carry out stratified sampling in future SMP years and balance that with more interviews and focus groups.
- Given that there was an overwhelming number of responses to the qualitative questions and that members of equity groups expressed that they preferred interviews/focus groups to surveys, consider making this qualitative aspect a larger component of future SMPs. This will also help to capture better data on equity groups, since, as noted previously, voices of dominant groups will often be the “loudest” in open-ended responses on surveys (qualitative).
- Begin member engagement and SMS promotion at the 5-6-year point/period.
- To ensure that just members respond to the SMS and that surveys yield a single response per member, continue to employ individual links in combination with SMS text invitations for the survey.
- Consider shorter surveys, especially if in combination with interviews/focus groups.
