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Brazilian water worker Ary Girota has not stopped fighting since the water utility where he works was carved up for privatization in April 2021. He is defending 2,500 members from mass layoffs and highlighting the dangers of for-profit water. He is equally relentless in calling out two Canadian pension funds for profiting from the selloff.

Karla Sastaunik is president of CUPE 4784 and co-chair of CUPE’s National Women’s Committee. She is also an Educational Assistant (EA) in a K-12 school at Good Spirit School Division in Saskatchewan. She is passionate to work with all students, and more specifically with students with special needs, who require supplemental learning supports, or who are newcomers to Canada. She is a proud advocate for students, and she is determined to fight for an improved education system in Saskatchewan.

Between them, registered practical nurses (RPNs) Answilla Joseph and Sonja Bernhard have nearly 50 years of experience in nursing. But, even for these two seasoned RPNs, the last two years of pandemic-related workloads, health and safety risks and understaffing have left them battle-fatigued and ready to pack it in.

Québec is going to the polls in 2022, and all indications point to the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) coasting comfortably to an overwhelming victory this fall. The election of a government led by an unprecedented number of CAQ MNAs is of concern to labour organizations like CUPE, who represent workers in essential services.

In the spring of 2019, former federal cabinet minister Jason Kenney was running to be Premier of Alberta. He stood behind a podium in a classroom filled with colour wheels and diagrams, and promised to bring common sense back to the education system. Three years into its mandate, the United Conservative Party (UCP) has brought anything but order to classrooms in Alberta.

The pandemic has worn people down, and taken so much from all of us. The cost of living is skyrocketing. There is so much uncertainty about the future, and understandably, folks are feeling frustrated and let down by their governments.

Public services across Canada were already in trouble when COVID-19 arrived. Decades of underfunding and privatization had forced Canadians to endure longer wait times at hospitals, fewer ambulances on the road, larger class sizes, few child care spaces and reduced supports for people in need.