To: USW Locals
cc: USW District 3 staff
From: Dayna Sykes, District 3 Education Coordinator
Re: Education Update
Dear Local Union Presidents,
Congratulations to all of you on your elections. I know there are still a few locals that are still in it, but I wanted to provide a bit of an update on what is happening in education and what to expect for the rest of the year.
This is going to be an exceptionally busy spring and fall with a lot of things coming up and rapidly.
New to D3
Tyler Bell from Local 480 will be helping in education in the district and we are really grateful to his local for releasing him to help us out. This will give us more time to support our new facilitators and work on updating a number of courses, as well as prepare for all of the upcoming events in the fall.
New to classes
We are now asking that all classes be opened with a land acknowledgement. This is part of our union’s commitment to truth and reconciliation. Land acknowledgements are a sign of respect. As part of our commitment to reconciling what has occurred in the past, we commit to continuing to educate our members on the truth of the history in our country and to challenge these systems. This can be done by staff, local executive member(s) or by the facilitator. If you are unsure whose land the class is being held on, Native-Land.ca | Our home on native land is a great resource to start with.
We are also asking folks to share their pronouns (if they feel safe to do so) when people introduce themselves in classes. This is to protect our members, and as facilitators we do not want to have any members misgendered in steelworker education. When we misgender folks, we are contributing to an unsafe work environment and classroom.
If you have questions about this, here are some links on places you can look for more information. If you still have questions after, please feel free to reach out to me.
Misgendering: What it is and why it matters – Harvard Health
Sharing our pronouns – solidarity in action – USW Canada
Officers in Action and Financial Officers
In addition to the Regional School in Regina on June 25-27, we are still offering these two courses to locals upon request. To do this, you will need to secure a location for the training and then like with other courses, put in the request to your staff rep and we will then assign and send facilitators and the materials.
In the event of a high demand from a specific region, we may consider adding another regional school to accommodate the needs of participants.
The link to register for the regional school is 2024 District 3 Regional School – Regina – USW Canada. The deadline to register for the regional school is May 31, 2024.
We have also negotiated a rate at the hotel and you can book that here: Book Your Group/Corporate Rate | Marriott International.
Steelworker Summer
We will once again be offering Steelworker Summer, which is a paid internship for young adults (17 years of age or older) funded by the Family and Community Education Fund. You can find the application here: USW Canada | Unity and Strength for Workers. Applications must be received by June 15, 2024.
Scholarships
Information for 2024 scholarships is posted on the website and can be found here: District 3 scholarships – USW Canada.
District School
The school will be from September 15-20 at St. Eugene in Cranbrook. To accommodate the busy fall schedule, we are offering a selection of 5 classes. The prices have gone up this year so we can offer more food options as well as considering the increased costs. We will be following up with another email once the registration page is posted.
Health and Safety Education
This summer we will be rewriting the OHS courses and will be holding a Train the Trainer focused on Health and Safety at the end of the year or early in 2025. If there are safety activists in any of the locals that you represent, and who would be a good fit for facilitation, please pass their names on to your staff representative. We will then assess the needs in the various regions and make our decisions on who will be invited to the training.
Elevating Action
We have completed the Train the Trainer and can now send USW and CFLPA members into workplaces. We are still working on figuring out the costs per session. Once we do, we will send out materials advertising the program. If you have an immediate need, please call and I can work with you to figure out costs.
White Ribbon, our partner in this program, has done a great job training our folks and preparing the materials for the presentations. Here are some links to the videos that will be used as part of the workshops (please note that there is gender-based violence portrayed in these videos. Our spokespeople will give trigger warning in class, but also don’t feel like you must watch them):
https://youtu.be/s7P6PeL–OQ
https://youtu.be/fjo-hwAKcas
The CFLPA Spokesmen are now in training camps, but we do have some players that are not playing this season that can be utilized. You can find information about the some of the program here: https://youtu.be/vaRsSqHn6h8
Reminder About Booking Courses
Please give us as much notice as you can when booking classes (at least 3 weeks) as we have to book off facilitators and sometimes the LOA’s can be a challenge. Even if you are not certain of names, it would be great to have an idea of numbers.
Family and Community Education Fund (FCEF)
If locals are contributing to the FCEF, they can apply for funding for activities in their local. Proposals that are under $5,000 are approved by me. Anything over that will need to go to a project review committee. There are criteria that locals need to meet to qualify for funding, and you can find that information here: Family and Community Education Fund – USW Canada
If you have any questions, please let me know.
Thanks,
Dayna Sykes
District 3 Education Coordinator
604-807-4983
Download
Request this file in a different format
Share on Facebook
