SPEECH BY ROBERT PEEBLES AT THE 2012 ALBERTA DIVISION CONFERENCE, RED DEER
Good afternoon, I am Rob Peebles and I ask for your support as the CUPE Alberta young worker
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At 27, I am a committed and enthusiastic young CUPE Alberta young worker and I believe that to grow and thrive, our union needs to attract and prepare young workers for the future and solidarity of the union.
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I got involved with CUPE 1505 because I believe everyone desires a fair deal in the workplace.
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Ihave been an overworked, under paid, non-unionized middle manager before and couldn’t do it. On one side were an alcoholic, racist, and sexist supervisor and on the other side a seasonal staff of high school students whose parents were all shareholder owners of the company. For six awful months I worked 14+ hours a day, 7 days a week, and could do nothing right. After six months I walked away and knew I needed to work for a union. CUPE has taken care of my biological family; my father and sister are both members of CUPE.
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I am here today asking for your support because I have the initiative to get my fellow young workers involved with CUPE, not only where I live, work and play, but across Alberta and Canada.
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I believe relationship building is key to moving forward with support from CUPE National, CUPE Alberta, and the other labor friendly associations.
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I have years of leadership experience of young workers and have listened to them with an open mind. Active as a shop steward for 2.5 years and active with the local executive as the recording secretary for 1 year, as well a many action committees; I have the support of my local executive, membership and other young workers. I am a foreman of the turf department at the Parks Branch with the regional municipality of wood buffalo and work with many other young workers. Most employees at parks are under 30 allowing for me to have direct contact with other young workers.
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How I plan to attract young workers to get involved in their union
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The simplest way to encourage young workers to get involved with their local is to utilize the communication vehicles they use routinely every day. If elected as the CUPE Alberta young worker, I will educate the young workers on how important is their involvement in their local and union activism. Moreover, I understand social media and how to use it, but I also see its limitations. People want to see someone putting in time and answering questions face to face. I have a good understanding of how technology can be used to make the union more efficient and have applied many examples. We now use a dropbox account allowing our full time officer and executive to work on the same files within any computer in the union office or at home if need be. I understand technology by itself is not a means to an end but a useful tool of communicating, I am not afraid to work with people face to face.
Many times I have been told that the young workers understand the importance of attending the membership meetings and pitching in but they feel the union is controlled by the older generations who refuse to relinquish control. I have explained that if young workers got involved with their local union the more experienced members of the union would assist in the development of the young workers as a succession plan is needed.
I feel many of the young workers have the life styles of the rich and the famous stuck in their minds and feel the more money you make the better your life becomes. I often remind the young workers how lucky we are to be working in safe communities, treated equal to one another, paid enough to feed ourselves and take care of our basic needs.
I have often thought how people can help each other in this world, as it seems everyone is trying to climb to the top at the expense of everyone else. The best way I have found to help your fellow man is to get into a union and help the union represent people.
Thank you for taking time to read this very long write up! Hope you enjoy convention!
Rob Peebles