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Strategic Directions day 2: Strengthening our plan | 2015 CUPE National Convention

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November 4, 2015

Connecting with members, building a more inclusive union, creating safe and healthy workplaces, and fighting privatization were front and centre in discussions about Strategic Directions on Wednesday morning.

Delegates resumed debate on CUPE’s blueprint for the next two years with discussions about the importance of health and safety activism.

CUPE 1623 vice-president Sharon Richer described the urgent need for action for health care workers, who face on-the-job assaults.

“Violence is not a part of our job. We all have a right to a safe, violence-free workplace,” said Richer.

Strategic Directions proposes that 2016 be a year focused on health and safety. CUPE 2669 member and national health and safety committee co-chair Dolores Douglas said the plan will re-energize CUPE and is a great way to connect with members, especially precarious workers.

Fighting privatization was another focus, with delegates calling for solidarity across sectors and targeted resources for locals under attack.

Barb Biley, CUPE 6179 and Hospital Employees’ Union member, told delegates how important it was to be able to quickly mobilize workers across sectors to fight contracting out at a seniors’ home. Building members’ capacity to fight back, and involving all workers in a region, is essential to keep winning these battles, she said.

Kirk Mercer of CUPE 951 and Randy Fennell of CUPE 728 both pointed to apprenticeships in the skilled trades as another way to defend public services against contracting out. They called for support to maintain and expand apprenticeship programs across the country.

Delegates discussed the need to keep building CUPE’s member-to-member organizing through the Fairness program, as well as the need to engage and connect with young and precarious members – building a truly inclusive and diverse union.

Source: Strategic Directions day two: Strengthening our plan | Canadian Union of Public Employees

China urges U.S. not to threaten its sovereignty – Reuters News 11/3/2015 8:40 PM

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BEIJING (Reuters) – Last week’s U.S. naval patrol in the South China Sea threatened China’s sovereignty and security interests, and the U.S. should not take any more dangerous actions that threaten China’s sovereignty, Chinese Defense Minister Chang Wanquan said.

Chang made the comments to U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter on Tuesday in Kuala Lumpur, China’s Defense Ministry said in a statement released on Wednesday.

Source: China urges U.S. not to threaten its sovereignty – Reuters News 11/3/2015 8:40 PM

Test to diagnose ‘face blindness’ – BBC News

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Scientists have come up with a questionnaire they say should help diagnose a condition called face blindness.

Prosopagnosia, as doctors call it, affects around two in every 100 people in the UK and is the inability to recognise people by their faces alone.

In its most extreme form, people cannot even recognise their family or friends.

Milder forms, while still distressing, can be tricky to diagnose, which is why tests are needed.

People with prosopagnosia often use non-facial cues to recognise others, such as their hairstyle, clothes, voice, or distinctive features.

Some may be unaware they have the condition, instead believing they have a “bad memory for faces”. But prosopagnosia is entirely unrelated to intelligence or broader memory ability.

One [anonymous] person with prosopagnosia explains: “My biggest problem is seeing the difference between ordinary-looking people, especially faces with few specific traits.

“I work at a hospital with an awful lot of employees and I often introduce myself to colleagues with whom I have worked several times before. I also often have problems recognising my next-door neighbour, even though we have been neighbours for eight years now. She often changes clothes, hairstyle and hair colour. When I strive to recognise people, I try to use technical clues like clothing, hairstyle, scars, glasses, their dialect and so on.”

Doctors can use computer-based tests to see if people can spot famous faces and memorise and recognise a set of unfamiliar faces.

And now Dr Pundit Shah and colleagues at University College London have come up with a 20-item questionnaire to help measure the severity of someone’s face blindness.

Source: Test to diagnose ‘face blindness’ – BBC News

Oil Relief Spurs Freeport and Teck to Biggest Gain Among Miners | BOE Report

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Freeport-McMoRan Inc. and Teck Resources Ltd., punished in the stock market for expanding into oil before prices tumbled, rallied on Tuesday as crude jumped to a two-week high.

Shares in Freeport surged 6.9 percent to $12.64 at 11:51 a.m. in New York while Teck, Canada’s biggest diversified, rose 9.4 percent to C$8.27 in Toronto. They were the best performers in the Bloomberg Americas Mining Index. Both shares are down 54 percent in the past year, compared with the index’s 31 percent decline.

Copper miner Freeport invested heavily in oil and gas in 2013 with the acquisitions of McMoRan Exploration Co. and Plains Exploration & Production Co., swelling its debt just ahead of a downturn in energy prices.

Teck has energy exposure through the proposed Frontier oil sands mine, and via a 20 percent ownership in the Fort Hills oil sands project, both in Northern Alberta. It’s shouldering 20 percent of costs in the latter project, estimated at C$13.5 billion in total.

“Among the miners, they have the most exposure to oil,” Daniel Rohr, an analyst with Morningstar Inc. in Chicago, said in a telephone interview. “Given the extent to which that’s leveraged on their balance sheets, that’s magnified.”

Oil climbed to the highest since Oct. 19 in New York, ahead of a report Wednesday which is expected to show higher refinery utilization rates.

Source: Oil Relief Spurs Freeport and Teck to Biggest Gain Among Miners | BOE Report