CUPE Ontario Statement for the National Day of Remembrance of the Quebec City Mosque Attack and Action Against Islamophobia on January 29

January 29 represents a tragic and shocking day in Canadian history. On this day in 2017, there was a senseless attack on Muslim men at prayer in the Islamic Cultural Centre of Quebec City: a gunman, driven by the hate-filled messages of Islamophobia and white supremacy, killed six people and inflicted serious injury on many…

CUPE Ontario’s Statement on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, January 27, 2023

On January 27, the anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau, CUPE Ontario observes International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The day was designated by the United Nations to honour the six million Jews who died in the Holocaust, victims of anti-Semitism, racism, and totalitarianism. Millions of others, including Ukrainians, Poles, Roma, people with…

OPEN LETTER RE: Ontario’s Health System at Risk

                                                 The Right Honourable Prime Minister Justin Trudeau                                                                                January 24, 2023 The Honourable Chrystia Freeland House of Commons, Canada OPEN LETTER RE: Ontario’s Health System at Risk  Dear Prime Minister Trudeau and Deputy Prime…

“We do the same work – why aren’t we being paid the same”: Food service workers at Nipissing and Canadore College overwhelmingly vote in favour of a strike

(NORTH BAY, ON) – Minimum wage food service workers at North Bay’s Nipissing and Canadore College, members of CUPE Local 1165 Unit 7, voted overwhelmingly in favour of a strike after seeing no movement on the issue of wage parity, said the union. “The contractor, Compass, pays food service workers at both Laurentian University and…

“Greedy and hypocritical”: Company owned by a pension plan is taking away its own workers’ pension plan

TORONTO – DynaLIFE Labs, a company contracted by the Alberta government to privatize health care services, is trying to take away a pension plan from its employees. The twist? DynaLIFE’s majority shareholder is the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (OMERS), a pension plan serving over half a million Canadians. In 2022, Alberta’s UCP government awarded…

CUPE Ontario pledges cross-sector support for the fightback against Ford’s plans for health care privatization

TORONTO – CUPE Ontario has pledged its full support to the coalition of five major health unions, including CUPE’s Ontario Council of Hospital Unions (OCHU/CUPE), as they gear up for a province-wide campaign of resistance to the Ford government’s “three-step plan” for privatizing hospital care services. “Our union will raise its voice on behalf of…

Ford’s plan to expand private clinics in Ontario will cost patients dearly, risk lives and significantly worsen staffing shortages, healthcare unions say

TORONTO – Five major Ontario healthcare unions are calling on the Ford government to not move forward with its plan to siphon provincial funding from public hospital care and hand it to private, for-profit surgical clinics, a risky venture that will cost Ontarians dearly and damage access to public care. The unions – CUPE/OCHU, Ontario…

A statement from Crystal Krauter-Maki, educational assistant and CUPE Local 4148 president, regarding the ransomware hack of Huron Superior Catholic District School Board

January 10, 2023 Sault Ste Marie, ON -Members of CUPE 4148 are caretakers, maintenance workers, carpenters, educational assistants (EAs), early childhood educators (ECEs), and clerical staff employed by the Huron Superior Catholic District School Board (HSCDSB). There are very few, if any, other organizations to which workers supply so much personal information as they provide…

Sault Ste Marie city workers vote to strike for a wage increase to address high cost of living, give city managers tools to retain and recruit staff

SAULT STE MARIE, ON – The workers who dug Sault Ste Marie out of huge Christmas holiday snowstorms have voted to strike, if necessary, to get a wage increase they need to receive for their families to keep up with the skyrocketing cost of living and the city needs to provide to retain and recruit…