EXPERIENCED LEADERSHIP AT CUPE LOCAL 79

I have many years of experience in senior leadership roles representing CUPE Local 79 : President (2012-2017) First VP (2008-2011), Chief Steward(2004-2007)  

Experience Fighting for CUPE 79 Members and Services We Provide: I have many years of experience monitoring the City of Toronto, TCHC and Bridgepoint Hospitals' budget's and decision-making processes, sensing threats to jobs and services. Working with others in CUPE, other unions, community allies, we successfully stopped Rob and Doug Fords effort to contract out many services, like cleaning in police stations, stopped cuts to Long Term Care; reversed cuts and increases services in Child Care, Recreation, Planning (see Fighting for You page for videos)

As Chief Steward (2004-2006), I led the implementation and administration of dispute resolution and mediation into grievance and arbitration process, and I took responsibility for working with Unit Officers, CUPE Reps as we strategized on grievances, reviewing legal opinions, and determining final disposition of grievances. These efforts led to the resolution of nearly 4,000 outstanding grievances over a 3-year period. Hundreds of grievances were reviewed every year and I thoroughly believe that we must return to providing more transparency and more timely resolution to members complaints and grievances.

I have led collective bargaining negotiations working with the Executive and Bargaining committees for seven bargaining units with our all three employers, all in very challenging bargaining rounds.

I was elected during the run-up to the 2012 round of City of Toronto collective bargaining.  This was a challenging context, in part because it was only four years after the 2008 Wall-Street generated global financial crisis, which governments were using as an excuse to limit wages in the public sector.   In 2012, Premier Dalton McGuinty’s Ontario Liberal government used Bill 115, the Putting Students First Act, to enforce of wage-restraint. While is principally targeted the education sector, McGuinty explicitly used Bill 115 as a warning shot to the broader public sector— musing of threats to including municipal and provincial with similar sweeping wage freezes. 

In April 2016, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice ruled that Bill 115 was unconstitutional, with the Court finding that the McGuinty government had "substantially interfered with meaningful collective bargaining" and violated Section 2(d) (freedom of association) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. (Golblatt Partners, LLP) and forced the Ontario government was to pay over $212 million in financial remedies to the affected education unions (including ETFO, OSSTF, CUPE, and OPSEU) to compensate members for lost bargaining power and benefits. (Toronto Star, Feb. 2, 2022)

Also in 2016, we initiated work to rule campaign action by Local 79 members at the City of Toronto beyond the strike-lockout deadline in the 2016 collective bargaining after the City had achieved concessions from Local 416. We always have to prepare for potential attacks on our collective agreements, stand up collectively against any attempts at concession bargaining and divide-and-conquer strategies to get concessions in other bargaining units and impose them on Local 79 members. 

We always have to prepare to fight, together!

Paralegal Certificate (George Brown College 2020-2024)

Masters of Law (LLM) Labour and Employment Law (Osgoode Law School - Class of 2020)

National Labour Leadership Initiative (NLLI) training provided through Workers Institute, Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations (ILR)                                                                2016-2020

• Leadership Self-mastery, Values and Vision
• Organizational Change, Strategic Planning, Diversity Equity & Inclusion
• Movement-Building (Union and Social Movement collaboration) 

Advanced Leadership Coaching Circle  / Leadership Coaching Through Crises 

(National Labour Leadership Initiative (NLLI) Workers Institute, ILR, Cornell University              2021 

DIRECTOR, SPONSORS CORPORATION BOARD Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (OMERS) Pension- Plan                                                                                                                                                2014 -2018