Anti-Black racism: The work isn’t done.

The past week has seen renewed conversations about anti-Black racism here in Ontario, across the country, and around the world. These are conversations we must have, because anti-Black racism is real, it is structural, and it is pervasive.

For Black AMAPCEO members, I stand in solidarity with you, and hear you when you say that more must be done to bring racial justice to every aspect of our society.

You may be interested in joining the AMAPCEO Black Caucus—a space for Black members to build community, support other members, and to advance equity in the workplace and your union.

For everyone else, I wanted to share with you just some of the actions that I will be taking, and encourage you to do the same:

• I will be listening to and amplifying Black voices so I can better understand the pervasiveness and impacts of anti-Black racism, its manifestations, and how to fight it.
• I will be seeking out resources on how I can be a better ally, recognizing that it is ongoing work. I will be encouraging my fellow leaders to do the same.
• I will be financially supporting Black-led and Black-serving businesses and organizations.

As a union, AMAPCEO is committed to advancing equity and inclusion. We work collectively to fight unfair or discriminatory practices, to promote employment equity, and to do our part to dismantle structural oppression within our workplaces, our union, and our society.

There’s more we can do, because this work isn’t done, but I wanted to share a couple of union-wide initiatives that are already established or underway:

A place to start is the online AMAPCEO course Equity & Inclusion: Activate Your Power. It introduces equity terms and principles and what you can do to help bring AMAPCEO’s Equity Statement to life. The one-hour course is available to every signed AMAPCEO member, for free, through our Education Portal, and covers topics including the history of discrimination in Ontario, lived experiences, intersectionality, and many others. The course is highly interactive, featuring video interviews, links with more information, and opportunities for self reflection. It does not need to be completed all in one sitting.

You must complete the 15-minute course AMAPCEO: My Union first, but the two are connected.

Your Board of Directors are also working with the AMAPCEO Equity Committee on the union’s first-ever Equity Lens, which is designed to be a practical tool to help us all be consistent and deliberate in moving equity and inclusion forward for everyone’s benefit. We will be using it when planning, executing, and evaluating our actions to identify and remove barriers to equity. We will also be encouraging our allies to utilize something similar in their work.

These are just a few of the actions we’ve taken, and examples of those we can take individually, or collectively, in the fight to end anti-Black racism. Because the work isn’t done.

Stronger together,

Dave Bulmer
President & CEO