For some CUPE locals, the benefits of sending members to the conferences were immediate, such as:

• Local 474 at the Edmonton Public School Board, where a team of two union and two management representatives came home from September’s conference with the will to implement a workplace literacy project for 600 custodians. By early November, they had signed a new collective agreement that includes plans for a workplace literacy project, something that management had fought before attending the conference.

• Local 21 at the City of Regina, where David Storey is working with his colleagues, who are also outside workers, to launch a new literacy program that is likely to include firefighters, transit workers and inside workers. After coming home from the Literate Cities 2002 conference, both union and management met in November to develop the Terms of Reference for a literacy project within the City.

More Efforts and Momentum for Change

Last winter and spring, three of CUPE’s provincial divisions hosted courses on workplace literacy issues. The focus was on clear language communication (in Saskatchewan) and on union-based literacy (in Manitoba and Ontario). In North Bay, Ontario, and Harrison, B.C., CUPE members signed up to attend similar workshops organized by the Canadian Labour Congress.

Across the country, CUPE staff in the union’s Education Department are some of the project’s biggest allies. Here are two examples of their efforts:

• Josey Finley, Alberta education rep, helped the Alberta Federation of Labour (AFL) produce a new video about workplace education, putting the director in touch with CUPE members in two municipalities and one school board. The video is now available for $10 from the AFL. Phone (780) 483-3021 or e-mail afl@telusplanet.net

• In Nova Scotia, education representative Gloria Murphy-Campbell has been working closely with the provincial Federation of Labour and other unions to develop a peer learning guide program. The program will train union mentors to help co-workers participating in workplace education programs. The first training sessions are planned for this summer.

“There’s a lot going on, and a lot of momentum for change,” says Sylvia. A new phase of funding from NLS will begin this summer, as CUPE continues to build on the Literacy Project’s slogan: Literacy is a union issue!

For more information on the project or to subscribe to CUPE Literacy News, the project’s newsletter, contact Sylvia Sioufi at (613) 237-1590 or by e-mail at literacy@cupe.ca

Debra Huron is an Ottawa writer and editor who specializes in clear language. She writes Literacy News, the newsletter for the CUPE National Literacy Project.

Sylvia Sioufi is the coordinator of CUPE National Literacy Project.