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Be prepared. And you can win. That’s the message John Hale, the president of CUPE 109City of Kingston municipal, public housing, and ferry service workerswants to relay to other Ontario CUPE municipal locals.
Recently, while the CUPE 109 leadership attended a CUPE Ontario educational in Toronto, the local of more than 1100 members learned that Kingston council was re-visiting a decision made last summer to keep a new organics recycling program in-house. That’s when a Kingston community anti-privatization coalition, that includes Queen’s academics, labour groups and CUPE 109, sprang into action.
With only a few days to act before the motion to reverse the decision to keep organics recycling in-house came to council, CUPE 109 chief shop steward Joe Sapp contacted the coalition partners. Within a day, a meeting was organized and a plan put in motion for coalition partners to lobby city councillors over the weekend prior to the council vote on the following Tuesday.
As well, says Hale, CUPE 109 members and coalition partners attended the Tuesday council meeting so councillors would have to look us in the eye when they voted to contract out our jobs.
Email, says Hale, is a great organizing tool, and locals should have invested time in getting members’ email addresses. Keeping an updated phone tree of members is also key to mobilizing in a short timeframe.
My advice to other locals is to get your ducks in a rowwell before any hint of contracting out or privatization, says Hale who is a big proponent of investing time in building a community coalition, developing relationships with councillors who support public services, and attending council meetings.
Hale says that, in addition to building a community coalition, the local’s active involvement in the last municipal elections in 2006 to get labour-friendly councillors elected, was one of the best things our local ever did to fight privatization.
Working in coalition to keep city services delivered by city employees is nothing new for CUPE 109. A decade ago, the local mobilized to stop the contracting out of garbage pick-up.
