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Union conference focuses on aboriginal workers' rights
Issues include time off for hunting times, creation of a unified voice of First Nation, Inuit and Metis membersThandie Vela Northern News Services Published Wednesday, Oct. 5, 2011
It was the first time the conference, which happens once every three years, has been held north of 60, regional executive vice president for the public sector union, Julie Docherty told Yellowknifer. "We are very proud of that,” she said. The mandate set out for the conference was "to provide a unified voice of the diverse community of the (Public Service Alliance of Canada)'s First Nation, Inuit and Metis members, so together we can increase involvement at all levels of the union, empower each other and advance our rights within and beyond our union," Docherty said. The theme of this year's conference, held at The Explorer Hotel, was The Path that Unites Us. Main speakers included author and political activist Ward LeRoy Churchill, and president of the Native Women's Association of Canada, Jeannette Corbiere Lavell. Conference co-chair Luc Tailleur, an Innu First Nation member from Quebec, added the group aims to "sensitize the nation on aboriginal issues, our realities and also to unionize aboriginal people to get them a better life condition." Among issues the alliance has set out in the collective agreement in the NWT, is mandatory time off for traditional hunting times for aboriginal members. "A conference like this brings power to the individual and we feel so powerful when we are together like this," Tailleur said, adding it is time for Canadian people to say "enough is enough" to the government when it comes to aboriginal issues. "Take care of the poverty of these people because we were here first," Tailleur said. "Colonization, residential school, that was a genocide -- that is a lot of things that hurt our people and now we are trying to get rid of this and the government is trying to keep their control on us," he said. Tailleur noted that aboriginal communities are under-financed for education, health, and have poor drinking water quality. The organization hosting the event, the National Aboriginal Peoples' Circle, was founded in 2004 and is among four equity groups in the alliance, along with the racially-visible sector, access for the disabled, and the women's section. The alliance has almost 6,000 aboriginal members and includes public sector workers, mine workers, and non-government organization workers. There are about 15,000 members of the public sector union in the North, and 185,000 nationally.
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