This week CUPE Ontario’s executive board members met for our annual planning retreat. The days we spent together gave us the time and opportunity to address, as a board, the events of the past two weeks. We discussed the actual and potential effects on CUPE members and on CUPE Ontario, and the various steps we should take to support our members and leaders in the current circumstances.
To that end, we wish to share the following statements with CUPE members. The statements are among the first in a series to members and we offer them as steps on the path toward communicating around recent issues, informing members of the board’s position, and ongoing work to strengthen relations in our union.
Comment on incidents involving Premier Doug Ford and Minister David Piccini:
CUPE Ontario’s executive board deplores the words and actions of Minister of Labour Piccini and Premier Ford against CUPE Ontario President Fred Hahn. Their scurrilous attacks are defamatory toward our elected president and insult the democratic process through which Brother Hahn was elected less than three months ago.
In that respect, the attacks also fall on CUPE Ontario’s elected board, representatives and members. We will accept no advice or comment from Conservative politicians who make no secret of their contempt for working people, whether through wage restraint legislation, attempts to impose collective agreements, cutting, privatizing or starving public services, or indeed any of the myriad scandals and ongoing corruption that characterizes their government.
Training to recognize and fight antisemitism and anti-Palestinian racism:
CUPE Ontario’s board acknowledged the need for greater awareness around the issues of antisemitism and anti-Palestinian racism. Educating ourselves to a greater degree around these issues will allow us to better reflect and serve CUPE membership and guard against further charges of bias and discrimination.
To fulfill that mandate, we as CUPE Ontario executive board members have resolved to educate ourselves on both these issues. We will undertake this training before the December executive board meeting and later ensure that it is extended to CUPE members in Ontario.
Supporting the democratic decisions of CUPE Members in Ontario:
The CUPE Ontario Executive Board wants to reiterate its commitment to fighting for the rights of the Palestinian people, and the right of workers to be able to advocate for solidarity with Palestine. This is in line with the democratic decisions that our members have made over the last 2 decades.
At this week’s planning session, members of CUPE Ontario’s executive board took the opportunity to pass motions in support of Brother Hahn as both CUPE General VP and as CUPE Ontario’s president. We passed these motions as recognition of the democratic will of CUPE members.
In Solidarity
CUPE Ontario Executive Board
