CUPE activist Marie Clarke Walker is taking her place on the front line as a leader of the Canadian Labour Congress.
Delegates to the CLC convention in Vancouver gave Clarke Walker their overwhelming support, electing her an Executive Vice-President. She ran with a clear message: it’s time to put the movement back into labour, building a strong and progressive workers’ movement that’s also an unshakeable coalition.
Clarke Walker has committed to build the CLC as an activist, powerful political force that defends jobs and services in communities and workplaces across the country and around the globe. She will be a strong and effective voice to defend public services and the workers who provide them, helping ignite a renewed and coordinated labour movement defense of the public sector.
An education assistant who works with special needs children at the Toronto District School Board, Clarke Walker was CUPE’s first-ever diversity vice-president, sat on the National Executive Board and has served on the Ontario division executive. She is a vice-president of her local, CUPE 4400. As a rank-and-file CUPE activist, she brings with her experience and insight that’s plugged into workers’ day-to-day needs and struggles.
Clarke Walker is involved as a community and union activist, as a worker of colour and a woman – fighting for human rights, equity and justice for all workers. She will be key to the progressive leadership team that moves the CLC’s campaigns from paper to action.
She will take her place on a team that also includes Barb Byers as Executive Vice-President, Hassan Yussuff as Secretary-Treasurer and Ken Georgetti as President. Together, they will move the CLC forward to build a stronger labour movment.