Wednesday, January 06, 2021
Happy New Year!
I hope that you had a restful and reinvigorating holiday season.
While we couldn’t be with as many or perhaps even any of our loved ones as in years’ past, we all found different ways to stay connected—from modern solutions, such as Zoom, to the more traditional phone call and snail mail (who doesn’t love receiving a holiday card and a tin of cookies!). Thank you to the member who sent along that treat and to the many who wrote, texted or called to thank AMAPCEO for being there this past year. It meant a great deal to hear from you.
With the advent of a new year, we’ve turned the page on a turbulent, often difficult, 2020 and I’m cautiously optimistic for a brighter 2021. As we learned last year, for all the uncertainty and frustration, there’s glimmers of hope—sometimes you just have to seek them out, but they’re there.
I’ve rolled up my sleeves and I’m ready to take the year head-on. No one will have to ask me twice when it comes time for vaccinations! And I’m ready to lead the AMAPCEO team for what I know will be another uniquely busy year.
Our priority continues to be the health and safety of members in the workplace and ensuring that any return for those currently working remotely is cautious, gradual, and flexible.
We will continue to fiercely defend our members’ interests, be they systemic or individual, through our distinctive interest-based approach to problem solving. We’re a principled but pragmatic union, and we should be proud of what calm, cool, collected professionalism has accomplished for us this past year.
Preparations for negotiating new collective agreements are either underway or starting soon for most of our largest bargaining units—the Ontario Public Service, Ontario Arts Council, Ontario Health – Quality unit, Public Health Ontario, and both units at the Ontario Ombudsman’s office. Our members at Waypoint see their contract go until 2023.
And our Member Engagement, Communications, Education, and Administrative teams are planning for a full year of programming and services, with all the agility they demonstrated last year, and then some.
While 2021 may bring with it some continued—and as yet unforeseen—challenges, I am confident we will get through them, just as we have these past nine months, and that we will be stronger for it.
Let’s roll up our sleeves and see to it together.
Dave Bulmer
President & CEO