CUPE local 1445, whose members work at Red Deer College in Alberta, has won a scholarship for a member to attend a CUPE week-long school. The prize was awarded for completing one of the National Women’s Task Force questionnaires, which were sent to all CUPE locals late last year.
“It’s very exciting,” said Sandra Phillips, president of CUPE 1445 and a member of Alberta’s ad-hoc Task Force committee. “I was very much promoting the individual survey to all our members and to our own local as well. To find out that we’ve actually been drawn (for our local’s participation), it’s the icing on the cake.”
The clerical local, which includes sessional lecturers at the College, has about a hundred members and is more than 90 per cent female.
Phillips, who has been president since mid-March, said she hopes to use the scholarship when the women Breaking Barriers workshop is held in Alberta.
On the work of the Task Force, Phillips said she is “very pleased” with the recommendations.
“I do think it represents a quiet majority,” she said, “what women and what everyone who filled out the survey feels.”