CUPE’s biannual Health and Safety Forum brought together activists and members to focus on building healthier, safer workplaces with a special emphasis on psychological health and mental well-being.
The forum opened with an announcement that 2026 will be CUPE’s Year of Health and Safety, sending a strong signal of how important this issue is for members. National coordinator Troy Winters unveiled plans for new initiatives, campaigns, and opportunities for member engagement throughout the year ahead.
The highlight of the forum was the launch of CUPE’s new, comprehensive mental health toolkit, a resource designed to help locals address psychological health and safety on the job. The toolkit includes model bargaining language, strategies to reduce stigma, and practical tools for health and safety activists to tackle the root causes of workplace stress and other psychosocial hazards.
“We want psychologically safe workplaces, but employers take an individualized approach. They want to talk about individual’s mental health and challenges, they want workers to build resilience,” said CUPE health and safety representative Paul Sylvestre. “But at some point, workers stop bending and start to break no matter how much resiliency they’ve built.”
The message from the forum was clear: mental health is a workplace issue and it takes more than an individual approach. CUPE’s toolkit is based on a psychosocial understanding of workplace mental health where members are equipped to identify and eliminate hazards to improve working conditions for all.
“Individual toughness to handle unsafe conditions should never be the focus,” said Sylvestre.
For more information about CUPE’s mental health toolkit or the Year of Health and Safety initiatives, contact your local health and safety committee or visit CUPE’s website.