CUPE along with SGEU and SEIU-West are launching a new website, profiling Community Service workers and the important care they provide to Saskatchewan people.

Modeled after the popular Humans of New York website, the People Who Care site features photographs of, and first-person narratives by, workers who provide vital services to some of the most vulnerable people in the province.

“These workers for the most part don’t do this work for the pay,” says CUPE Saskatchewan President Tom Graham. “CBO workers do this work because they feel passionate about caring for their clients. They deserve recognition, and this website will do an amazing job of bringing attention to the workers who will be spending their holidays with their secondary families, their clients.”

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CUPE 4980 Representative Corinne Sopel(Left), NDP Opposition Critic for Health D. Chartier (Centre), Ituna Town Councillor Nancy Deleurme (Right)

CUPE alongside Ituna community representatives were at the Legislature today to present a petition signed by over 500 residents of Ituna and surrounding area to save their lab services from cuts which were made effective in October of this year. After the petition was introduced, the NDP Opposition Critic for Health called upon the provincial government during question period to listen to the concerns of the community and reverse the cuts to lab services in Ituna which were reduced from five days a week to only three with potential further cuts to come.

The significant cut to lab hours reduces access to health services and critical tests for Ituna area residents. The NDP Opposition Health Critic highlighted the concerns that exorbitant costs of excessive travel or ambulance fees could result when town residents, long-term care residents, and residents with intellectual disabilities in supported living face the need for laboratory tests and the town’s lab is closed for days at a time. Furthermore, cuts to lab hours could make retaining a certified laboratory technologist to run the lab difficult, along with the ability to keep a town doctor in the future.

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As detailed in a new CUPE report entitled Reconciling the Gap, recent census data for Saskatchewan shows the Aboriginal population is growing and will likely make up one-fifth of the Saskatchewan population by 2036, while showing a stark picture of the current income and employment inequalities facing Aboriginal people in the province.

On October 25, 2017, Statistics Canada released information regarding the Aboriginal population from the 2016 census.

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Attend a vigil in your community.

The National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women was established to honour victims of the December 6, 1989 massacre at École Polytechnique in Montreal, where 14 women were murdered because they were women. One of those women, Maryse Laganière, was a CUPE member who worked at the school.

Canada’s labour movement has shown leadership in making workplaces safer for women and advancing the well-being and rights of women in all areas of society. It’s at the heart of what we do.

Let’s remember and work for change to end violence against women, and all forms of sexual and gender-based violence and discrimination in the workplace, at home, and in the community.

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CUPE Saskatchewan’s Global Justice Committee encourages CUPE members to take part in Amnesty International’s Write for Rights events in Regina and Saskatoon on December 10, 2017 –International Human Rights Day. The write-a-thon events bring people together to write letters to human rights defenders and to the governments that are putting them at risk. The write-a-thons are taking place around the world on December 10th.  Your participation and action can help save lives, stop torture, free prisoners of conscience, and send messages of hope to those who have been unjustly jailed.

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The Saskatchewan Division of the Canadian Union of Public Employees is calling on the Saskatchewan Party government to drop the mandated 3.5% compensation reduction for public sector workers that was announced as part of its 2017 provincial budget.

“CUPE is the largest union in Saskatchewan representing over 30,000 workers, with roughly two-thirds of our workers in or going into bargaining in the near future,” said Tom Graham, President of CUPE Saskatchewan. “Not one single CUPE local has agreed to accept a rollback in compensation since this regressive mandate was announced earlier this year. CUPE bargains forward, not backwards.”

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The CUPE Saskatchewan Annual Convention 2018 will be held on March 7 to 9, 2018, at the Radisson Hotel in Saskatoon, SK.

Each year, delegates from affiliated CUPE locals across the province gather at the CUPE Saskatchewan Convention to set the direction and determine priorities for the year ahead, elect members to leadership positions, hear reports about the work being done by our union, and engage in discussions about issues facing CUPE members and the public services we provide.

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Each and every day, CUPE members working in community-based organizations (CBOs) across Saskatchewan provide and deliver important services that strengthen our communities and make a difference in the lives of those they care for and support.

From child care centres to supporting people living with disabilities in the community, group home settings, and through vocational and other programs, CBO workers are dedicated to helping others in our communities.

On November 6, let’s extend our appreciation to CBO workers for all they do to help others and make life better for so many in our community.

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The day before the throne speech, Premier Brad Wall promised in a video on his facebook page that he heard Saskatchewan people and his government would repeal its controversial Crown Corporation privatization legislation known as Bill 40. Now, with the promise only days old, the Sask Party government is already breaking its own promise to repeal Bill 40 and, instead, it will once again leave options open to shut down Crown Corporations through the backdoor.

“Breaking their own promise in the same week they told Saskatchewan people they would repeal Bill 40 is record-breaking hypocrisy and goes to show you can’t trust the Sask Party to do the right thing and leave our Crown Corporations alone,” said Tom Graham, President of CUPE Saskatchewan. “It’s deeply disappointing the political games of privatization continue with this Sask Party government in the months left before Premier Wall’s announced retirement, and its leadership hopefuls seem ready to rubber stamp the hypocrisy.”

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TOM GRAHAM, President, CUPE Saskatchewan

REGINA – The provincial government’s throne speech lacks any real action to reverse the harmful cuts made in the cruelest, harshest Saskatchewan budget tabled earlier this year in March.

“Earlier this year, the Sask Party government delivered a budget that unfairly punished working families for their mismanagement with deep cuts to public services, rollbacks, and job losses for Saskatchewan people,” said Tom Graham, President of CUPE Saskatchewan. “Today’s throne speech does next to nothing to repair the damage and the mistrust caused by the government’s actions since the budget in March.”

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