Iqaluit (Feb 10/03) - The first graduates of the Public Service Alliance (PSA) of Canada's union development program were honoured in a week filled with public and closed-door forums.

The occasion was a gathering, Feb. 3-7, of the Northern Territories Federation of Labour.

Union activists from Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut mingled with national labour chiefs to talk shop, but the public was invited to share their comments on a variety of subjects.

"The more the merrier," said Iqaluit PSA rep Mary Ellen Thomas.

Workplace literacy in a cross-cultural setting was explored on Feb. 3 in the Francophone Hall.

Get active and defend medicare, is what Canadian Labour Congress's (CLC) Mike Desautel talked about Feb. 6, also at the Francophone Hall.

A panel on the proposed Nunavut human rights act was set for the same venue and day.

The panel features human rights directors David Onyalo (CLC) and Raj Dhaliwal (Canadian Auto Workers), and Nunavut Employees Union (NEU) president Doug Workman.

For a clause-by-clause look at the human rights act, the same panel members were on hand Fri., Feb. 7, in the NEU office complex.

As for the graduates, they are 20 union reps who were taking the last week of a three-week leadership course.

The program is run nationally, but PSA members in the South usually do it in three straight weeks.

Their Northern cousins studied one week at a time throughout the fall.