Hello everyone, welcome back to another school year! The Executive hopes that your summer has provided you with rest, relaxation with some summer fun thrown in! I can’t believe that we are already in the second week of school start-up as the first week flew by; hopefully everyone has had a seamless start-up or as seamless as possible. I have been working on creating our new CUPE website with support from our National IT department, so I invite you all to check it out! It will show when our next General Meetings are, and any news that the Executive needs to share with the membership, plus much more. You will notice, that we only have 2 pictures currently on our home page, however, I will strive to take more pictures as I visit sites throughout the year and add them (with your permission of course)! Please visit our website at https://727.cupe.ca/ The Executive designed a new logo for our local as we had the CUPE BC logo and we thought it was time to change it up and make it more unique to Pacific Rim. As you will probably recognize, the mountain shape was taken from a picture of Arrowsmith; hopefully you all approve! When I come out to the West Coast, I will take pictures to put on our slideshow to showcase these areas beautiful landscape.
Nadine Doucette and I spend two days in the office re-arranging furniture as to be more efficient and comfortable to do the full-time President role for the 2024/2025 school year. The office looks great, so a big thank you to Nadine Doucette for all her help as the furniture was quite heavy! As well, I went around to some schools and work locations to check in with staff this summer who were working; I found this opportunity to connect with staff fantastic and it was great to be able to listen to our members issues and then be shown exactly what members are dealing with in their work locations and areas. I will continue to visit schools and work sites throughout the year, rotating each week so that I will be able to connect with each site monthly! I also plan to visit the West Coast/Bamfield sites at least 2 – 3 times per year to connect with our members out there. The Executive designed a new logo for our local as we had the CUPE BC logo and we thought it was time to change it up and make it more unique to Pacific Rim. As you will probably recognize, the mountain shape was taken from a picture of Arrowsmith; hopefully you all approve! When I come out to the West Coast, I will take pictures to put on our slideshow to showcase these areas beautiful landscape as well.
This summer when I was going through some member files at the office, I noticed that most files were missing an application for CUPE 727 membership form, so I have started a new process with the employer to have new hires fill it out when they receive their hiring package. Some members remember filling them in many years ago, but as they are not in their file, I decided to have everyone do a new one as it is also a great opportunity to get current demographic information, put a face to a name, and to give out a new CUPE membership card. When I went to work locations this summer, I tried to catch as many of our members who were working as I could and had them fill them out, but approximately 200 members are still needing to. I will be bringing them with me whenever I go to a site and once, they are filled out, I will give you your CUPE card that shows you are a Union member. On these forms, it is important that you provide a personal email address as that is the way that the Executive sends correspondence to our members; especially with bargaining coming up next spring. We no longer send CUPE information via the employer’s email, so please make sure that if you change your email or any demographic information, please send the new information to cupe727president@gmail.com
Just a reminder that our Union meetings are now on the 3rd Wednesday of the month, and the location will be at ADSS. Please use the parking lot and entrance at the back of the school (Wood School route). We will be in the PE Classroom by the gym and will have an Executive member standing at the entrance to show members where it is if they are not sure. We have decided to move our venue due to our office being inaccessible to some of our members due to the stairs and we also hope to see more members at our GMs, in which, our office will not be able to provide enough space. For those who cannot attend in person, we will have a Zoom link for you to attend that way, however, please note that until we change our bylaws, we are unable to have members vote on Zoom. This was a recent directive from CUPE National.
In closing, the Executive would like to welcome our Indigenous Support Workers that were previously in Nuu-chah-nuulth Education Worker positions (NEWs) to our CUPE family. They have been an integral part of our school community and are not new to our school teams, however, they are new to CUPE 727, so welcome!
I hope that the rest of September and the school year is a great one for everyone and I will see you around our worksites!
In Solidarity,
Nadine White
President
CUPE 727