Wednesday, January 09, 2019
"As we look forward to 2019, it's important to reflect on progress made in 2018. As most of you know, I’m a big believer in the strength of community – and so I’m very pleased to report that our AMAPCEO community gets stronger by the day."
Growth is critical to any organization and I’m pleased to report that AMAPCEO has grown on several fronts. Since 2015, our membership has grown by an astonishing 20% to an impressive 14,250 members. With a growth strategy in place and organizing underway outside the OPS, we hope to expand our presence in the broader public sector. Having led the formation of the Professional Unions Network of Canada – a congress of like-minded Public Service unions working together to prosper the cause of all Public Servants – we have also increased our scope of influence. And, by meeting with members more than 200 times in 2018, our member engagement and activist recruitment levels are steadily growing.
AMAPCEO continues to wisely invest in education. As we conclude year two of our five-year education plan, we’ve revamped our core Workplace Representative (WPR) training, re-introduced Health & Safety workshops, and made a foray into online education and local lunch and learn events. Likewise, our Workplace Rep Mentorship Program continues to thrive having added several new mentors.
Those mentors assist us in our greater efforts to administer our contracts by coaching our newest WPRs, for whom we’ve added a third entry level program offering to our training calendar in 2019. Veteran WPRs who function at Employee Relations Committees (ERCs) will also benefit from standardized approaches and joint training agreements attained with our OPS Employer.
Throughout 2017/18 we’ve been able to successfully negotiate collective agreements and achieve very respectable compensation increases, added ground-breaking family leave provisions, and in our BPS units made serious advances for temporary contract workers.
Our outreach and communications strategies continue to evolve with the transition to a new government. Over the past six months our efforts to reach and inform decision-makers at the Minister and Deputy level have been extensive. Our ‘Public Servants at Work’ campaign, where our members appeared in ads across the province and in the Toronto transit system, demonstrating what it is they do for Ontarians, has evolved into our ‘Working for Ontario’ campaign. With local workplaces now our target, AMAPCEO’s brand, in the form of coffee mugs, magnets, decals, flags and lanyards, is slowly painting our workplaces a proud blue and white.
All of this progress has been driven by a solid governance and operations base. Our new Board model is flourishing with an influx of new contributors and an increase in Director education. Our Districts now have an Operating Policy and Community Leads to assist our Directors. And, our Activists and Leaders Forums have been an overwhelming success, and our Annual Delegates’ Conference has developed to a new level.
Our strategic priorities (bolded above in this message) are serving us well and it’s an exciting time to reflect on our progress and to renew our commitment to reaching our goals. In doing so, I want to recognize the outstanding work of our professional staff, the enduring commitment of our activist base, and the leadership shown by our Board of Directors – thank you all – we are indeed stronger together.
Dave Bulmer
President