President’s Report to General Membership November 12, 2008

I have just returned from  a most remarkable week at our CAW college in Port Elgin, Ontario where I, along with your VP Tim Robins, took part in an intense week-long course in Collective Bargaining.

What a great environment for learning; history, focus, cohesiveness and camaraderie, and setting.  It is so much more fulfilling than learning in a hotel room and eating in restaurants.  Through our PEL Fund all this is provided at no cost to our members or our Union Local.  It provides a great opportunity to meet CAW brothers and sisters from all over the country.  It’s a real eye opener to learn about different workplaces, different strategies to deal with different issues as, in our case, Collective Bargaining.  In 2009, we will be sending the rest of our Bargaining Committee members to take the same course.

One disturbing bit of information I obtained, aside from the automobile and manufacturing industry meltdown and the subsequent crushing loss of jobs, is  how little BC Transit  pays into the PEL program.  Other locals receive between 3 and 5 cents per hour per member paid into their PEL clause in their agreements.  On ours Transit pays a lump sum of twelve thousand dollars a year.  That equates to just over 1 cent per hour per member and I urge the membership to bring this issue forward to our Collective Bargaining proposals so that we will hopefully be able to double or triple the opportunity for our members to become more educated in Unionism and to become more confident and effective Union Representatives for many areas such as:  bargaining, grievance handling, human rights, women’s advocacy, harassment-free work place, violence in the workplace and occupational health and safety, to mention a few.

On the weekend following the Bargaining course I attended the CAW Skilled Trades Council along with Bruce Head, charge hand from LTC.  We voted in the new Executive Committee members.  The guest speaker was Ken Lewenza, the new National President of CAW.  He stressed the need of all members to become more politically active to prevent a Tory majority … starting now.  We have to put the face of our Union into as many niches of our community as possible.  We need members on council in our municipalities, in our churches and school boards and  in our political parties – wherever we can make a difference.

A good illustration of this is the Acorn Movement.  This grassroots movement came out of  the destruction of Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent disregard for those citizens affected by the storm.  This mobilization of activism was overseen personally by Barak Obama .  It was this movement that propelled Obama to the highest office of the United States.  Acorn and Obama were responsible for doubling the Black and Hispanic voter turn out that brought Obama and the Democratic Party the historic election.  Disenfranchised minorities, people of color, as well as religious and secular groups finally got their act together and didn’t just “make a difference”, they “made the difference”.  They have empowered themselves.  They have achieved control of the political process.  They elected the first non-white to the presidency of the United States – a monumental achievement. As Unionists we must learn from this grassroots movement.  We must embrace its concepts and endeavor to put the face of Unions in as many organizations as possible.

CAW is internationally recognized for its social face.  Many CAW Skilled Trade members volunteered their time to assist after Hurricane Katrina.  CAW was one of the first Union groups to assist New Orleans in recovering from the devastation that was wreaked upon it, building homes and replacing infrastructure.  CAW recognizes Aboriginal Peoples as the most significantly  disenfranchised sector of society in Canada and has made a commitment to prioritize our assistance to them.  In Canada CAW members volunteered to travel to the Aboriginal community of Little Salmon Carmacks in the Yukon to replace wells and plumbing infrastructure within that community.  CAW assisted in the renovations to the Aboriginal Community House (the Spadina Project) in downtown Toronto, installing computers, educational programs and games to assist First Nations people, who have left reservations, to adapt to city life.

I would like to challenge this membership to look among ourselves for Skilled Trade members and members who have informal or past skills to consider volunteering our services to assist First Nations communities in our own backyard.  Who here is a carpenter or electrician or plumber or just a strong back who would volunteer to provide such assistance to this kind of project?  Who here is willing to volunteer a day off for a   disenfranchised group rather than work O/T for our employer?  Think of what we could accomplish, even on  a small scale.  In the words of Gandhi  “Be the change you want to see”.

One thing I realized from my course in Port Elgin is how little I know about the demographics of our membership.  How many men?  How many women?  How many First Nations people? How many people of color?  How many single parents?  How many gay people? How many first generation Canadians? Etc.  At the next sign-up I would like to suggest that conduct an anonymous census to determine the diversity of our membership so that your needs and interests may be better served.

In solidarity,

LR Jones, President