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EMERGENCY RESOLUTION

Emergency Resolution No. 801
Submitted by the National Executive Board
Convention decision: Adopted

CUPE NATIONAL WILL:

  • Call on the Canadian Labour Congress to unite the labour movement with visible actions to defend trade union rights, including free collective bargaining rights and the right to strike, and actions that connect to all Canadians in defence of their democratic rights.
  • Vigorously defend our right to engage in political action on behalf of our members by opposing legislation such as Bill C-317.
  • Work with farmers and other allies in defence of the Canadian Wheat Board by taking action such as supporting the CWB legal challenge.
  • Support the Occupy Wall Street movement and all that it stands for in defence of workers, the unemployed and the marginalized against the corporatization of our economy and governments.
  • Prepare now for a 2015 NDP federal election victory by developing a strategic plan to counter the attack on workers, farmers, students and the rest of the 99 per cent. This plan will support the work that delegates mandate at this convention through Strategic Directions and other resolutions.

 BECAUSE:

  • The Harper government is using its majority to escalate its attack on workers’ rights in particular and collective action by Canadians in general;
  • Within the last month alone, the Harper government has, among other actions, unilaterally:
    • Removed the right to strike from CUPE flights attendants at Air Canada, who voted 98% in support of strike action, and is effectively imposing a collective agreement through ministerial interference in the collective bargaining process;
    • Supported the introduction of Private Member’s Bill C-317 that would impose financial reporting requirements on Canadian unions aimed at restricting our political activity;
    • Introduced legislation ending the Canadian Wheat Board’s single desk authority, despite existing legislative requirements for a vote by farmers, who showed in a September non-binding vote their majority support for maintaining the CWB.
  • These actions build on the introduction of back-to-work legislation forcing an end to the lockout of CUPW members by Canada Post and the threat of similar legislation to end a strike by CAW ticket agents at Air Canada;
  • The Harper government continues to put corporate interests ahead of the interests of working Canadians – the 99% – through corporate tax cuts funded by job and program cuts;
  • Changing the channel” with the aim of defeating the Harper majority in 2015 will require a concerted, unwavering effort to renew Canadians’ understanding of the value of unions and the rights of working people.

YOUNG WORKERS

Resolution No. 261
Submitted by CUPE British Columbia
Convention decision: Adopted

CUPE NATIONAL WILL:

  • 1. Designate 2013 as the Year of the New and Young Worker; and
  • 2. Develop an action plan to increase new and young workers awareness, involvement, and education to be executed in the year 2013.

 BECAUSE:

  • There is a visible need for union awareness, involvement, and education for CUPE’s new and young workers.

HEALTH CARE

Resolution No. 147
Submitted by CUPE British Columbia
Committee recommendation: Covers 148
Convention decision: Adopted

CUPE NATIONAL WILL:

  • 1. Conduct a broad-based campaign for a stronger federal role in Canadian Medicare in the negotiations to renew the 2004 Health Accord;
  • 2. Conduct a public campaign in 2012-2013 to mobilize support for a 10-year health accord with a six per cent annual escalator;
  • 3. Provide training for CUPE members to organize with allies, seniors, youth, anti- poverty, women’s and patient advocacy organizations to lobby all levels of government to extend Medicare by including residential long-term, home and community care and universal pharmacare; and
  • 4. Provide education on the escalating threats to Medicare in the Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement (CETA) between Canada and the European Union.

 BECAUSE:

  • Polls show publicly funded and delivered health care system is a top priority for Canadians;
  • Listing health care in the CETA negotiations will facilitate the privatization of health services;
  • CETA would lengthen the period of monopoly drug patents adding $3 billion annually to Canada’s drug bills;
  • Increased drug costs means increased profits for corporations with no investment in public health care; and
  • The principles of Medicare are under attack from people who want to profit from the ill health and misfortune of others.

DISABILITY RIGHTS

Resolution No. 79
Submitted by CUPE Prince Edward Island, CUPE British Columbia, the Hospital Employees’ Union (B.C.), the Toronto District Council (Ont.), Locals 2191 (Ont.), 998, 1063, 2348 (Man.), 4828 (Sask.), 1004 (B.C.)
Convention decision: Adopted

CUPE NATIONAL WILL:

Explore the possibility of working with the Persons with Disabilities National Working Group (PWDNWG) to implement a 6-month disability rights awareness campaign to:

  • Raise awareness within CUPE of the issues impacting workers with disabilities;
  • Develop a range of materials and tools for education at the local and provincial levels;
  • Create/compile collective agreement language related to disability issues to facilitate the negotiation of language to support workers with disabilities to remain gainfully employed;
  • Increase the profile of disability-related issues on the CUPE National website and other media;
  • Improve the access to disability rights courses that include an accessibility component, using CUPE members with disabilities as member facilitators in such courses, to the extent possible.

 BECAUSE:

  • Workers with disabilities continue to face barriers with respect to employment as well as with respect to their participation within the labour movement;
  • Often disability-related language is not a priority during bargaining though it is becoming increasingly important as our members age;
  • Workers with disabilities have much talent to contribute;
  • When we are all educated on disability issues, it strengthens solidarity within the union and benefits society as a whole.

CHILD/DEPENDENT CARE

Resolution No. 20
Submitted by CUPE Prince Edward Island, Locals 3017 (N.L.), 2936, 4092 (Ont.), 998 (Man.)
Committee recommendation: Covers 21, 22, 23, 24 ,25, 26 and 28
Convention decision: Adopted

CUPE NATIONAL WILL:

  • 1. Engage in a well-funded, sustained campaign for a Canada-wide early learning childhood education and care system that:
    a) Is public/non-profit, quality, inclusive, accessible, affordable and includes adequate compensation to Quebec;
    b) Provides children 0-12 years with optimal environments that support their development;
    c) Provides the child care workforce with good wages, benefits and working conditions.
  • 2. Enshrine the booklet, Early Learning and Child Care - It’s Time as our key child care policy;
  • 3. Make child care a priority as we build toward the 2015 federal election;
  • 4. Actively work within the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) and engage CUPE divisions, CUPE councils and locals and our coalitions to organize a national day of action, and to build provincial action plans that commit to public child care;
  • 5. Step up its anti-privatization campaign, track and oppose any growth and work to stop funding to private, for-profit child care companies.

 BECAUSE:

  • Child care is a human right according to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Elimination of Discrimination against Women;
  • Studies show investing in quality, early childhood education and care, as in Quebec and countries with national child care programs, stimulates the economy and creates jobs;
  • Access to quality, affordable early childhood education and care is vital to the full and equal participation of women in our economy;
  • Quality, early childhood education and care lays a foundation of success for our children’s lives;
  • There are not enough quality, affordable child care spaces to meet the needs of working families;
  • Labour opposes the exploitation of child care for profit, and the impact of for-profit child care companies includes higher fees for parents, rising public subsidies, lower wages for child care workers, questionable quality, and a switch to more for-profit child care at the expense of community-based centres.
  • The NDP is the official federal opposition in Parliament and has always been a strong ally in advancing early care and learning;
  • We will not be deterred and defeated from our resolve; and
  • Child care is vital for building a democratic community, an inclusive society and is a human right.

 HIV/AIDS

Resolution No. 165
Submitted by CUPE Saskatchewan
Convention decision: Adopted

CUPE NATIONAL WILL:

  • 1. Lobby the Government of Canada to address the underlying social and economic factors behind the epidemic of HIV/AIDS incidence in Canada;
  • 2. Demand that the Government of Canada live up to their commitments made to each of the millennium development goals; and
  • 3. Demand that the Canadian government lift the freeze on international aid and restore the funding cuts to well-respected development and advocacy groups such as KAIROS and the Canadian Council for International Co-operation.

 BECAUSE:

  • The number of people living with HIV continues to grow despite the medical research, prevention and treatment advancements that have been made;
  • Poverty, inequality and discrimination are drivers of this disease;
  • In Canada, the HIV incident rates have reverted to rates equivalent to those in the 1980’s and are disproportionately higher among aboriginal people, women, immigrants and IV drug users; and
  • CUPE identified the HIV/AIDS issue as a priority in our strategic directions recognizing the impact on workers, workplaces, families and communities and given the critical connections between HIV/AIDS, human rights and justice.

 SOLIDARITY

Resolution No. 229
Submitted by the Toronto District Council (Ont.), Locals 1979, 2191, 2204 (Ont.)
Convention decision: Adopted

CUPE NATIONAL WILL:

Before March 2012, work with community and labour partners to convene regional, provincial and national assemblies of workers, including participants from public and private sector unions, traditionally under-represented equity communities, women’s, faith-based, voluntary, environmental, sports, regional and national coalitions, racialized, undocumented and migrant workers, non-unionized and unemployed workers that will coordinate sustained and escalating action to:

  • defeat the current offensive against our valued public services and public assets;
  • reverse austerity policies;
  • reintroduce progressive taxation to 1979 levels;
  • build sustained and escalating resistance to right wing governments and to the Impacts global capitalism;
  • promote policies of full employment, the expansion of publicly-delivered social programs, a 1% solution for affordable housing and the conversion of military to civilian spending in a sovereign, peaceful, democratic Canada.

 BECAUSE:

  • Conservative governments threaten to rewrite labour legislation and completely gut social programs;
  • The working class is being forced to pay for an economic crisis they didn’t create, while corporations and the wealthy are richer than ever before in history;
  • Almost 2 million workers are unemployed, EI is inaccessible to a majority;
  • Wages and living standards are falling; household debt is sky-rocketing.

CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS

Resolution No. C10
Submitted by the National Executive Board
Convention decision: Adopted

CUPE NATIONAL WILL:

Amend Article B.11.1 to make any violation of the bylaws of a chartered organization an offence under the Constitution. Article B.11.1(a) will read as follows:

(a) violates any provision of this Constitution or the bylaws of any chartered organization”

Article B.11.1(l) will be deleted and the remaining paragraphs of Article B.11.1 will be re-lettered accordingly.

 BECAUSE:

  • The violation of the bylaws of any chartered organization should be an offence under the Trial Procedure.

Resolution No. C11
Submitted by the National Executive Board
Convention decision: Adopted

CUPE NATIONAL WILL:

Amend Article B.11.1(h) to cover the Union and any chartered organization so that Article B.11.1(h) will read:

(h) uses the name of the Union or any chartered organization to request monies or to advertise without proper authorization”

 BECAUSE:

  • Using the name of any chartered organization to request monies or to advertise without proper authorization should be an offence that can be processed under the Trial Procedure.