Visions:
Devel­op­ing new ETFO leaders

By Kelly Hayes

sta­tis­tics for the 2011–2012 school year show that 20 per­cent of our mem­bers are in their first five years. While not all are youth, these mem­bers are still “new” – new to ETFO. (In fact, about 50 per­cent of mem­bers have belonged for less than 10 years.)

This also means that 80 per­cent of our mem­ber­ship is beyond five years. Long-time mem­bers make up much of our union lead­er­ship – our local and provin­cial exec­u­tive mem­bers, com­mit­tee mem­bers, and stew­ards. Year after year though, these mem­bers retire or move on in other ways, and fill­ing those lead­er­ship posi­tions becomes very important.

ETFO rec­og­nizes that strong union renewal is a nec­es­sary com­po­nent to build­ing a healthy col­lec­tive future. Many efforts have been made to wel­come new mem­bers into our union and our pro­grams, includ­ing the new mem­bers’ stand­ing com­mit­tee, the Visions con­fer­ence, local train­ing pro­grams, and des­ig­nated posi­tions on local exec­u­tives. ETFO resources for new mem­bers include The Heart and Art of Teach­ing and Learn­ing and the related web­site heartandart.ca, the new mem­ber web page etfo.ca/beingamember/newmembers, and a ded­i­cated col­umn in this magazine.

The large major­ity of these new mem­bers are women. (Just over 80 per­cent of all ETFO mem­bers are women.) This makes gen­der an ever-present dimen­sion of union revitalization.

The active inclu­sion of women and other equality-seeking groups has been proven over sev­eral decades to be a cor­ner­stone of union renewal. Build­ing women’s spaces and edu­ca­tion into unions has been instru­men­tal over time in ensur­ing women’s voices are heard. This is evi­dent when we look at the pos­i­tive impact that women’s com­mit­tees, pro­grams, and des­ig­nated posi­tions have had not only on ETFO, but on the labour move­ment as a whole.

Orga­nized women’s con­stituen­cies help keep the pres­sure on both women and men to lead in a way that addresses the par­tic­u­lar con­cerns of union mem­bers in the work­place, as well as in the union. Orga­nized women’s con­stituen­cies can also pro­vide an on-going base of sup­port that is inclu­sive of other equality-seeking groups, which inevitably will include large num­bers of women. In “Union Women Lead­er­ship: What’s the Dif­fer­ence?” Morna Bal­lan­tyne writes: “… build­ing and devel­op­ing women’s lead­er­ship should be embraced as a way for­ward for unions that want to grow in size and strength, and build power through mem­ber­ship involve­ment and the active inclu­sion of women and other equality-seeking groups.” (avail­able at unionleadership.ca/diversity/gender.html).

ETFO’s new Visions pro­gram for women mem­bers in their first five years takes the con­cepts of inclu­sion and renewal and offers them as an ongo­ing program.

For the past sev­eral years Visions has been a stand-alone women’s con­fer­ence that included work­shops on a vari­ety of top­ics. This year, ETFO is pilot­ing a new Visions pro­gram that takes place over five months. It brings new mem­bers together for face-to-face meet­ings and engages par­tic­i­pants in ongo­ing local project work. This could mean par­tic­i­pat­ing in local com­mit­tee work, shad­ow­ing a work­place stew­ard, or get­ting involved with the local labour council.

Dur­ing the face-to-face meet­ings par­tic­i­pants will have the oppor­tu­nity to learn more about how ETFO works, to meet local and provin­cial union lead­ers, to under­stand the many oppor­tu­ni­ties for involve­ment in ETFO, and to dis­cuss our con­nec­tion to global movements.

The Visions pro­gram is one way of giv­ing the newest mem­bers of our fed­er­a­tion an oppor­tu­nity to develop lead­er­ship skills. It gives them an oppor­tu­nity to get to know the fed­er­a­tion and fig­ure out how they can con­tribute and make their voices heard.

Kelly Hayes is the coor­di­na­tor of Equity and Women’s Ser­vices at ETFO.

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