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Details about issues of immediate importance to members will be posted in this section as they arise.
Dispatches from the PSAC Convention
PSAC North members
have impact around the world
Ten delegates and three observers are representing Yukon Employees Union at the 15th National PSAC Convention in Vancouver. Along with our counterparts from Nunavut and the Northwest Territories, the Northern Region is wholly or partly responsible for bringing forward almost one fifth of the 133 resolutions that are expected to reach the floor of convention.
What we as northerners can be proud of is the fact that many of these resolutions are aimed at expanding and protecting human rights, not just for our members, but also Canadians in general and beyond that to those of struggling workers and their families around the world.
A testament to the PSAC as a whole’s commitment to global rights was seen in the first plenary session. It highlighting the PSAC’s Social Justice Fund. A panel of speakers told stories of workers in India, Guatemala, Philippines and South Africa. Our union, through the Social Justice fund has supported these workers in such projects as working towards protecting quality public service in Guatemala and South Africa, recognizing basic rights of subsistence farmers and the landless and migrant workers in India and supporting the movements here in Canada to deal with our own national issues of poverty and lack of social housing, and literacy.
The social justice fund continues to grow through the efforts of Collective Bargaining. At this point sixty bargaining units now contribute to the fund through negotiated clauses in their collective agreements. Many groups participating are small, but there are larger ones as well. Canada Post Corporation is a contributor and, most recently, the Government of the NWT which has, agreed to contribute two cents per hour of union work to the fund.
The fund has also, over the last 4 years contributed humanitarian relief in the form of medical supplies and safe drinking water initiatives following natural and non-natural disasters in Pakistan, Gaza and Haiti.
Our national President John Gordon summarized the relevance of our involvement around the globe the issue well. He indicated that labour has serious challenges in Canada and while our challenges our tough, theirs are much, much tougher. Globalization may be threatening the rights of workers around the world, but globalization is also enabling social rights activists to band together to create a human rights network like the world has never seen before.
Contributed by Denise L. Norman,
Executive Director, YEU
Convention summary from the PSAC website
Our convention finally gets underway
PSAC renews commitment fo Think Public
Gordon re-elected PSAC National President
Take the pledge and be a public service defender
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