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Name |
Description |
NEW
Building your Community through Political Action
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What do you know about the political climate in your municipality, in Ontario, in Canada? How do you identify the current issues in your community? Do you have the confidence to speak to someone about an issue that you consider very political? Can you use your power of communication to raise awareness of a subject that is making an impact on your life? Do you know the players in the political arena? How do you find the right persons to speak with?
These are some of the topics that will be explored in the new Building your Community through Political Action course. You will get the opportunity to practice mingling with others while chatting about topics of interest. You will find out how and when to lobby or protest and demonstrate how to lobby a group on a topic that is of interest to you. This course will also build your confidence and take you through some strategies you can use to influence others and elicit change for all. |
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Have you ever been confused at meetings about when you can speak and when you
can’t? Perhaps you have tried to run a meeting where there was no quorum, or
where people kept interrupting each other and getting off track. Maybe you’re
discouraged because you’re not sure how to make meetings a good use of anyone’s
time. This course examines the potential of meetings to tap into diverse
members’ energy and interest, and to build union capacity. Practical, hands-on
activities will help you a) develop an interesting agenda and get members to the
meeting; b) understand how to write and put forward a motion and use basic rules
of parliamentary procedure effectively; c) facilitate an effective meeting
discussion; d) deal with meeting “nightmares” who often look like members who
won’t stop talking, or who can’t agree. Materials include templates for
committee reports and meeting minutes, as well as step by step guidelines on
running different kinds of meetings. |
NEW
Advanced Grievance Handling for Union Building
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Does your local have a grievance committee? Can your experience in handling a
grievance help to build the local? Can you use your knowledge of common
grievance issues to raise awareness at demand setting meetings? Have you ever
thought of what it is like to be on the Employer side of the table? These are
some of the topics that will be explored in the new Advanced Grievance Handling
for Union Building course. You will also get the opportunity to practice being
on the Union’s team and the Employer’s Team as you work through some scenarios.
Building on the Basic Grievance Handling for Union Building course, this course
focuses on expanding both the steward’s and Local’s ability to process
grievances from start to finish. Through active interviewing process,
participants will explore how to identify grievances, practice negotiating
settlements and draft realistic, enforceable grievance settlements. |
NEW
Climate Change: It’s a Union Issue.
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This course taps into the worries and hopes so many union activists have of
building sustainable societies that count workers in. Starting with our lived
experience and concern about climate change, participants will analyze how we
got here, and what the impacts of environmental degradation are on different
communities. We’ll examine what other organizations and societies are doing
about climate change and what we can learn to take action in our workplaces,
unions and communities. The course uses a variety of interactive activities,
films and discussion to move from analysis to action. January 2010. |
NEW Mental Health: Challenging the stigma in the workplace
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As workers and labour activists, we are faced with economic, social, and political changes in our workplaces that impact our mental wellbeing on a daily basis. We all respond differently to situations that impact our lives and subsequently, our mental health.
This introductory course explores mental health, mental health concerns, and stigma in the workplace. Some of the topics covered in this course include: demystifying mental health; individual, union, and employer responsibilities; member-to-member issues; and some strategies to challenge stigma and build inclusion.
December 2009
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NEW
LEC Leadership & Team Development:
A Course for Local Executive Committees to take together
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Have you ever returned from a union course with great ideas for improving your local and been met with, at best, blank stares? This course is based on the assumption that LEC teams can benefit from training and planning together to build inclusive, effective locals. It emerges from the experience of OPSEU’s Building Local Capacity Project.
4-6 people from an LEC register together and participate in this course with 4 or 5 other LEC groupings. The course is a working session for LECs to clarify their individual and collective roles as local leaders, to develop a comprehensive picture of their units and workplaces, and to assess the functioning of their Local. Based on that assessment, LEC’s will begin to develop action plans, which include using a range of OPSEU resources. The final session on “Practising Shared Leadership” provides tools for improving the ways the LEC works together to address common Local problems.
December 2009
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Dealing with
Workplace Conflict
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Everyday, in our lives, we have to deal with situations of
conflict. It may be with our family, our work colleagues, our friends, our
peers or our supervisors. In this 1 ½ day course we will define and analyse
conflict and look at the range of processes aimed at
alleviating or eliminating sources of conflict. There are many tools available
to persons in conflict. How and when they are used depends on several factors
that will be perused. We will also look at mediation and its role in conflict
resolution. |
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Advancing Union Issues through Labour Management Committees |
Often union-side members become cynical about labour management committee work
because the employer refuses to meet, or follow through on action. This course
aims to strengthen skills of labour management committees to solve workplace
problems and build the union, whether management is cooperating or not. A
variety of activities are used to clarify the union-building potential of LMC’s,
to assess the effectiveness of a labour management committee, and to strengthen
skills to move a workplace complaint to resolution at the LMC. Attention is paid
to a) arguing an issue; b) addressing management tactics; c) using the LMC to
communicate with members; d) strategies to mobilize members to back LMC work; e)
connecting LMC work to bargaining and mobilizing work in the Local.
Bring Your Collective Agreement to this course |
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Speak Up and Push Back: Challenging Bullying and Psychological Harassment in
the Workplace |
Is bullying and psychological harassment an issue in your workplace? This course
will help you recognize the signs of bullying and a toxic workplace. We’ll look
at case law and other tools helpful in understanding the impact of workplace
bullying. And we’ll strengthen individual and collective capacity to respond to
co-workers, and pressure employers to tackle this issue. |
Organize!
the
nitty-gritty of an organizing campaign |
Organizing is the life-blood of the union. Organizing brings new members
into our union. Organizing builds our collective strength and assists
OPSEU members when; bargaining for improvements, enforcing our contracts,
and lobbying politicians for changes to public policy to benefit our
members and their communities. >>
click here for more |
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Revised March 2010 Duty to Accommodate: A Tool for Inclusive
Workplaces |
Provincial legislation and existing case law require employers and unions to
provide accommodation short of undue hardship.
This interactive course examines the roles and responsibilities of the
employer, the union and the member in accommodating members with disabilities
and all other protected groups under the Ontario Human Rights Code. It builds
activists’ skills to support members requiring an accommodation, and to deal
with employer resistance to accommodation in the workplace. |
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Women and Unions Strengthening Leadership |
This course offers seasoned
women activists a chance to analyse the advances and barriers to diverse
women’s leadership in the union. Through case studies of common problems
women face in the workplace and union, the course explores issues of
power, privilege, equity and effective action. It offers the chance to
develop practical strategies for strengthening diverse women’s leadership
and building an inclusive union. It will also focus on ways to strengthen
women’s committees and gatherings in our locals and regions. |
Women in Unions
Getting Involved |
This
course is for diverse women who are just getting involved in OPSEU, who
want to know how things work and how they can make a difference in the
union. Participants will bring their own experience of the workplace,
community and union to develop an analysis of what's needed in their
locals, and how they can contribute to building an inclusive union.
Through hands-on activities, women will practise making their voices
heard, and will develop strategies for supporting the involvement of
other diverse women in the union. |
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Human Rights, Union Rights and
Global Solidarity |
This course is for OPSEU
members who want to understand how global economics are affecting our
workplaces and what activists worldwide are doing about it. The
course analyses how global forms of privilege and oppression operate in
our workplaces and exposes the privatization of public jobs, services and
resources in Ontario and globally. |
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Basic Grievance Handling for Union Building |
This course is designed to
examine the grievance process from a workplace organizing perspective.
Grievances are opportunities to build the union. This hands-on course
helps members analyze situations to decide whether a grievance is the best
approach. They will learn about different types of grievances and the
remedies available through the grievance/arbitration process. They will
develop technical skills in writing, processing grievances and practice
communication to assess whether a member’s rights have been violated. |
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Health and Safety – Level One |
This course is designed to
equip members and stewards with the skills necessary to identify, monitor
and attack the hazards of working life. It will include topics such as
hazard identification, investigation and reporting, establishing effective
health and safety committees, workers’ rights under the law and how to
apply them. |
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Health and Safety – Level Two |
This course is designed to
provide stewards and Health and Safety Committee members with the
knowledge necessary to identify hazards in the workplace. Participants will learn to
control hazards and assist in accident investigation, prioritize and
strategize around health and safety problems. This course also includes
an overview of the Occupational Health and Safety Act. Case studies,
group exercises and audio visual presentations will be used in this course |
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Parliamentary Procedures |
REPLACED BY THE COURSE:
Let’s Start Meeting Like This! Running Meetings that Build the Union |
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Politics of Pensions: Pension
Basics and Beyond |
This course seeks to demystify
the world of pensions, educate members about labour’s role in the
development of pensions in Canada, increase members’ ability to influence
public policy around pensions and increase member awareness of how
bargaining can be used to improve pensions. |
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Employment Standards Act (ESA) |
This course is designed so
that participants will have an increased understanding of the Employment
Standards Act (ESA), and how it is relevant to collective agreements and
the union bargaining cycle. They will also be given insight into the
importance of knowing and mobilizing your members to ensure that their
basic rights as workers are enforced. |
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Stewards 1: Making a Difference in the Workplace
Revised September 2009 |
This is an updated version of Stewards 1, full of new tools and practical
activities. The key aims are to strengthen steward skills to orient a new
employee to the union, have effective one-on-one conversations with a
cross-section of members, develop a communications strategy to enlist diverse
member involvement, and develop approaches to everyday workplace problems.
Throughout the course, participants are supported to develop a profile of their
members, clarify the tasks of the steward, find resources and information in
OPSEU, and understand the grievance process and their role in it. Participants
must have completed Part 1 before registering in Part 2. Participants should
bring their collective agreements.. |
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Stewards 2: Facing the Employer, Building Member Involvement Revised
October 2009 |
Prerequisite: Part One This revised follow-up to Stewards 1 focuses on
investigating and writing a grievance, facing management, and involving members
in worksite action. Participants will use their own collective agreements to
identify grievances. They will become immersed in an evolving case study in
order to interview a grievor, write up a grievance, face the employer at a step
1 and make a presentation on safety issues to the union side of the Joint Health
and Safety Committee. They will examine the elements of effective mobilization
and develop a campaign strategy for a local. Participants should bring their
collective agreements. |
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Workplace Safety and Insurance
Board (WSIB) – Level One |
The first level is designed to
provide an overview of the Workplace Safety and Insurance system.
Participants will review the statutory obligations of both workers and
employers mandated by the Workplace Safety and Insurance Act. Workers and
employers will also learn their rights as provided by the legislation.
The course content includes other basic knowledge of the Workplace Safety
and Insurance system. |
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Workplace Safety and Insurance
Board (WSIB) – Level Two |
The second level is designed
to provide participants with the knowledge of the benefits and service
available. This level is designed to build on the knowledge attained in
Level One. Benefits and services will be detailed, including changes as a
result of legislation/bills. The course will take an indepth look at
services and benefits available under the Act. |
Labour History –
Part One |
OPSEU members who participate
in this course learn the exciting history of the Canadian labour movement
and OPSEU’s role and accomplishments within it. The course addresses the
special issues and challenges of each era, including our own.
Participants analyze how the collective action of working people, against
the resistance of employers and the state, has resulted in important
social changes (such as medicare, unemployment insurance, maternity leave,
health and safety legislation, etc.) Special attention is given to the
history of the labour movement’s response to diversity and the
contributions of different racial and cultural groups to labour gains. Participants must complete
Part One prior to attending Part Two. |
Labour History –
Part Two |
Prerequisite: Must have
completed Part One Part Two continues to delve
deeper into the labour movements history and our response to it. |
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Local Treasurers/Trustees
Course |
This course is aimed at Local
Treasurers and Trustees who are either new to the role or experienced
members who are seeking a “refresher course”. The goal is to give the
necessary tools and education to Local Treasurers and Trustees in order
for them to fulfill their roles in the Local. It will also draw on
members’ experiences to solve problems occurring with the administration
of Local funds. |
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Benefits (OPS) |
This course is designed to
provide members with an understanding of benefit entitlements. Our
benefit plans are increasingly at risk. How can we fight the Employer’s
attempts to take away from this important part of our financial package?
What can we do collectively to protect the gains we have made? This
course will provide you with the information you need to enhance and
protect your benefits. |
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Local Newsletters |
“A local with a newsletter is
a local with a heart. It cares about its members.” This is a hands-on
course providing he basic skills needed to put out a good local
newsletter. Participants will have a chance to learn and practice writing
news reports and headlines, finding and using graphics and cartoons, use
of layout and design tools and equipment. |
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Liquor Board Employees
Division (LBED) |
This course is open only to
members working for the LCBO. This course will assist members from the
new Liquor Board Employees Division to find their way around OPSEU. While
the emphasis of the course is on grievance handling, it will help members
and stewards to understand the role of the Labour Management Committee,
the Health and Safety Committee and other roles within your new local.
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