Meeting with OPSEU members

I had the opportunity this evening to speak to about 20 delegates at OPSEU's Greater Toronto Area Council (GTAC) meeting. This is my second visit there since beginning this stint back in the winter. I covered a number of points this evening including:

• big picture including the poll and banking report in the following two posts
• web and video conferencing initiatives at OPSEU
• bottled water phase-out
• December 7 Day of Action against Global Warming event in Toronto
• greenhouse reduction targets
• greener meetings including Convention 2009
• paper reduction (membership lists sent to regional offices)
  
• one-day regional educational on climate change

A couple of suggestions related to paper reduction were made including:

• feasibility of online grievance forms
• providing locals with the ability to edit local membership forms online

Thanks to GTAC president Bob Taylor for the opportunity to update the delegates on the greening OPSEU initiatives.

While I haven't spent as much time among the membership as I had initially envisioned, I've been able to meet with a number of committees and groups including:

• Provincial Human Rights Committee
• Provincial Young Workers Committee
• OPSEU's People with Disabilities Caucus
• Ontario Correctional Institute (OCI) environment committee
• Green stewards at Convention '08