Before and since the pandemic first hit, members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) in Saskatchewan have been on the frontline and behind the scenes caring for you in health care, long-term care and home care – and delivering the many public services we all rely on to keep our communities safe, healthy and strong. As we face yet another wave with the Omicron variant of COVID-19, we know many challenges are yet to come in keeping our communities safe and to prevent further loss of life. We also know just how vital our public services and the workers who deliver them are in the fight against the coronavirus.

Click to read the full year-end message from CUPE Saskatchewan.

From health care to the K-12 education system, universities to public libraries, in our cities and hometowns delivering municipal services and maintaining local infrastructure, in community-based organizations (CBOs) caring for our most vulnerable and delivering child care, and through various boards and agencies, CUPE members delivering vital public services have been there for us. Thank you for all you do for Saskatchewan!

We all need to do our part in protecting one another from the spread of the coronavirus – and to protect the public service workers who are sacrificing so much to be there for us. This includes limiting our close contacts, staying safe by wearing a mask and washing our hands, getting tested and maintaining distance from others.

By all of us doing our part to stay safe during holiday celebrations, we can recognize and protect the frontline workers who will be working over the holidays continuing to provide vital public services for our communities.

The unprecedented fight against the coronavirus has shown that all workers deserve much more recognition for their contributions, their commitment and their courage. It has also unfortunately taken an unprecedented crisis of a pandemic for the government and employers to show more recognition to their workers, to urgently invest in public services long starved of funds, and to finally recognize just how unsustainable a society is with low wages and precarious work. Health care workers continue to warn about the need for more government action on burnout and to address the short-staffing crisis – and the need to invest in our public health care system, rather than turning to misguided privatization.

As we near the end of yet another challenging year and look to another, let us recommit to do our part to keep safe, push forward for more fairness, to call for more investments in public services, and to demand better recognition of our fellow workers.

On behalf of the Executive Board and staff of CUPE Saskatchewan, we wish everyone a safe holiday season and a happy, healthy new year.

To our many frontline heroes: Thank you!

Published by the Division Office /NM cope 342