Workshop Catalog

Unions are strongest when every worker is valued, included, and empowered. This interactive workshop is your introduction to building an anti-racist union—one where solidarity means standing up for all members. Through engaging discussions and real-world examples, we’ll explore key concepts, challenge biases, and develop the skills needed to create a more inclusive and powerful labour movement.

This workshop is an introduction to building an anti-racist union. It is part of a wider program of anti-racism workshops from CUPE Education. This intro workshop introduces some core ideas, concepts and skills that are carried through the other workshops and resources.

1-Day in-person workshop for all members.

In this workshop, we will look at Canada’s history of settler colonialism, explore how to recognize and challenge racism against Indigenous members, and discuss how we can leverage our power as union activists to advance reconciliation and Indigenous cultural safety in our workplaces and locals.

This workshop explores the benefits of bringing services in house - both for CUPE members and for those who rely on the services we provide. Learn how to identify possible services to bring in house and the steps to contracting in. Work with CUPE's new toolkit to stop contracting out called "Stop Contracting Out: A guide to bringing jobs and services back in house."

Conflict is a natural part of our lives. Learning to handle it well improves relationships with other members, co-workers and the employer.
In this workshop, you will:
• deepen your understanding of conflict;
• strengthen your communication skills;
• practice responding to conflict.

This workshop explains the role that capitalism plays in workers’ lives, and examines the links between local and global issues. We will explore how building solidarity with workers in other countries makes the labour movement stronger in Canada and around the world.

This workshop covers:
- How to recognize warning signs of indoor air quality problems;
- How to investigate, analyze a situation and explore solutions;
- When and how to use respirators safely to control a hazard;
- How the health and safety rights and process applies to indoor air quality issues.

NOTE: Please bring your binder and Health and Safety Committee Resource Kit.

Have you ever sat through a meeting, either as a participant or a facilitator that you knew could be more focused, efficient, inclusive, or effective? We use Bourinot's rules of parliamentary procedure to make important decisions in a way that is fair. But sometimes a different kind of conversation is needed to be inclusive and build our movement. In this workshop, executive members learn how to find and lead the right process for the work that needs to get done.

Parliamentary procedure is an important part of our democratic process in CUPE. Some conversations are better had using other approaches. How do you decide when parli-pro is needed and when another approach could help?
Build your facilitation skills for supporting effective and inclusive discussions, learn and practice some processes that you can use in your day to day work.

Staff work with locals to put together a strategic planning session. Strategic planning is a collaborative way to set achievable and measurable goals for your local. It will help you determine what will be implemented over a matter of weeks and years so your local can evolve and grow to serve your membership better. It is also a way to build capacity and activism within your local. This is not an off the shelf workshop. Each situation is different and requires a tailor made approach.

More than half the population will experience a mental health problem over their lifetime. At least 20% of us are dealing with mental illness on any given day. Mental health issues touch every one of us directly or indirectly. What does this mean for us as workers? What about in our role as union activists? What are our duties and responsibilities? How can we support members who may be dealing with mental illness? This workshop will help answer these questions and more. *Includes certification "Mental Health First Aid."

Conflict is a part of our lives – at work, in the union, and at home. In this workshop we’ll build our conflict skills by looking at:
• How our beliefs about conflict and our conflict style affect what happens in a conflict.
• Sources of conflict in the union and at work.
• Conflict dynamics, cultural differences and power
• Choosing the best response in a conflict.
• Conflict communication skills and difficult conversations

This workshop is an introduction to why Truth and Reconciliation is a union issue, what Indigenous cultural safety can look like in the workplace and how members can use collective bargaining to make workplaces more safe and inclusive of Indigenous workers.

This workshop will help participants:
- Recognize sexual harassment and sexual violence.
- Understand the impact of sexual violence and harassment on workers.
- Know our rights, roles and responsibilities.
- Practice how to address sexual violence as an active bystander.
- Learn how to deal with and prevent sexual violence and harassment.

New forms of work, job insecurity, work intensification, high demands, violence and a resulting poor work-life balance are resulting in psychosocial and mental health problems in CUPE workplaces. This workshop focuses on the workplace as the cause or a contributor to mental health issues, and not the individual. We will discuss strategies and actions that actually help make workplaces psychologically healthier and safer.