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As part of CUPE’s Year of Health and Safety, each month a new profile will be published on cupe.ca highlighting the work of CUPE’s health and safety activists, celebrating health and safety victories, and discussing health and safety resources available to members and locals.
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Member profiles
Supporting workers by improving health and safety
“The role of the union is to offer support, make recommendations and serve as a resource,” says Anne Filiatrault, a member of CUPE Local 1500 and a member of the CUPE Quebec provincial occupational health and safety committee.
Member profiles
Violence is not part of the job description: one worker’s story
Member profiles
PEI paramedics working together to make things better
“Working together to make workplaces safer.”
That’s the health and safety motto for Kyna MacInnis, Jed Burt and Kelly Williams, workplace occupational health and safety committee representatives and paramedics in Prince Edward Island.
Member profiles
CUPE health and safety activist keeps the public, members safe at 30,000 feet
Tanya Paterson, a CUPE health and safety advocate from the airline sector, talks about the struggles of bargaining health and safety language into collective agreements: “We have been working at the bargaining table for many months and are prioritizing health and safety language this round.”
How joining the union made the workplace safer: An activist’s story
“My only regret is not having been involved earlier,” says Heather Croft, a Continuing Care Assistant from Bridgewater, Nova-Scotia, and member of CUPE 3936. Croft is the acting president of her local, and participates in many of the union’s activities including sitting on the labour-management committee, the grievance committee and acting as chief shop steward.
Member profiles
A young worker takes the lead on health and safety
A member of CUPE 3791, Forbes coordinates life enrichment activities for residents at the Wexford Residence, a long-term care facility in Scarborough, Ontario. She’s also a young worker and a health and safety activist. She’s been involved with her local for four years and has also recently become involved in her provincial division and the national young workers’ committee.
Member profiles
How Threads of Life helps families affected by life-altering incidents at work
“I made a commitment to do something positive with our love for Tim” explains Shirley Hickman a grieving mother who lost her son Tim in a tragic workplace incident in 1996. Tim was a member of CUPE 739, working for the City of London at the Silverwoods arena part-time. He died days after being severely injured when the arena’s ice resurfacing machine exploded.
News
Young CUPE activist becomes provincial leader in health and safety
“It’s our duty to represent temporary and precarious workers,” says Aman Cheema on why he became involved with his local union and provincial division. Cheema wanted to make his working environment and community a safer and better place. As a young worker and member of CUPE 402 (City of Surrey, BC) Cheema works every day to make that vision a reality.
Member profiles
CUPE can help you improve mental health in your workplace
Sylvain Beaulieu, a CUPE health and safety advocate, admits he had a difficult childhood. Growing up, Beaulieu says he learned the importance of fighting injustice and defending others. Later in life, he applied these same lessons in his workplace and his union.
Yes, funding cuts make health and safety hazards faced by library workers worse (but your union can help)
“You start to see things with different eyes and you begin to recognize potential harms that you have never noticed - situations you may have walked by hundreds of times.” That’s how CUPE health and safety activist Dolores Douglas describes attending health and safety training for the first time, 13 years ago. As part of CUPE’s Year of Health and Safety, each month a new profile will be published on cupe.ca highlighting the work of CUPE’s health and safety activists, celebrating health and safety victories, and discussing health and safety resources available to members and locals.
Health and Safety
No worker should be put at risk on the job. At CUPE, we fight for robust workplace protections and practices that ensure the safety, well-being, and health of all workers.