Brenda Coombs - 2007
City et. al. Bargaining Committee 2015 & 2019
It has and continues to be an honour to represent our City et al members at the Bargaining Table thus far. As an elected member to the committee I take my responsibilities seriously to ensure that my contributions help to move us forward collectively. The committee nominated and elected me to the role of recording secretary, a role that I take to heart - ensuring our record of meetings are recorded well and stored in a safe searchable format.
Elected as an alternate for the City et al bargaining committee in 2015. My role on the committee was also that of recording secretary - as an understudy to Brenda Coombs.
New & Young Workers (Past Chair and Member)
After our 2012 collective agreement was signed, I met a couple of young workers that were keen on the idea of getting people engaged and involved in their union without the adversarial issues that are often associated with union activism. We began discussions on what this would look like and how we could go about completing our out-reach. It took a while for this committee to really get up and off the ground but in 2015 we hit the ground running.
It was a small group to begin with (only three of us) and shortly thereafter we grew to five people and now we have members representing almost every sector of our local. Some of the activities that we were able to put on include:
Pink Shirt Day out-reaches
2015 - Museums & Colleges
2015 - Community Centre's
International Women's Day
2015 - Vancouver Art Gallery Public Out-reach
2016 - Purse Initiative for the Vancouver District Labour Councils dinner (purses were handed out to women in shelters on the downtown eastside)
VSB - Out-reach
2015 June - out-reach into the schools providing information
Summer Barbecue
2015 - first annual barbecue held at Trout Lake Park
Vaisahaki
2016 - handed out apples with CUPE BC Committee Against Racism and Discrimination
Many of these activities have continued on as regular CUPE Local 15 activities in one capacity or another. We do not have a current active New & Young Workers Committee - something that I would like to see reinstated - as they are the leaders of our future. We need to provide them the tools and information to bring all of us forward.