On December 4 and 5, 22 Local Presidents, all elected in the past year, came to OPSEU head office for a two-day working session.

In this Orientation for Local Presidents, they had the opportunity to interact with staff representing a number of areas including: Negotiations, Contract Enforcement, Public and Government Relations, Health and Safety, Local Services, Accounting Services, the OPSEU Resource Centre, Campaigns and Equity.

The Presidents then worked together, using scenarios provided and their lived experience, creating strategies to strengthen their Local, develop good stewards and gain managements’ respect while keeping their Locals engaged.

They also had the opportunity to listen to and ask questions of the President of OPSEU, Smokey Thomas and First Vice-President Treasurer Eduardo (Eddy) Almeida.

This energetic group shared a number of strategies for building their Local, involving members, and keeping their stewards and other LEC members engaged.

Here are some of the strategies they used to gain managements’ respect:

• Conducted a worker satisfaction survey and shared the results with the Union and management

• Kept an open communication with management flagging grievances and timelines

• Alerted management that they would be creating and sharing a newsletter

• Took matters in their own hands and met with their MPP to highlight issues about campaigns that needed support

• Proposed a “new method” of completing complicated assignments that was so good it was accepted by management

Members participate in “group work” analyzing a scenario and working to develop solutions to both address the immediate situation and build solidarity among the membership.