Community Action Network - United through diversity

Community Action Network - An initiative of Locals 175 & 633 UFCW Canada

CAN participates in Hamilton PRIDE Celebrations

From June 9 – June 19, the Women & Liminal Committee along with community partners, including Locals 175 & 633, hosted a tenday series of events during "HammerPride." The aim was to host events that were women and trans positive, and could accurately showcase the many experiences within the LGBTQ communities. The Community Action Network made a donation to the organization which enabled them to organize high quality events including the OUTspoken Poetry Slam and the third annual Women & Trans march, which affirmed the importance of our united struggle for our rights in our communities and society at large.

5th Annual CAN Cultural Day & BBQ

On July 16, 2011, more than 500 members and their families came out to celebrate the Fifth Annual Community Action Network Cultural Day & BBQ at Boyd Conservation Area in Vaughan. Everyone enjoyed great food, games, face painting and a beautiful sunny day! Thanks to all who helped us celebrate and we look forward to seeing you next year!

For photos visit the ufcw175.com website!

2011 Chinese New Year Celebration

On January 29, 2011, approximately 400 members and their families came out for great food and fun at the Local Union's annual Chinese New Year celebration. The gathering was held at the Locals 175 & 633 Head Office in Mississauga.

Everyone enjoyed the great food and entertainment, including martial arts demonstrations and a traditional dance.

Check out the photos here or on Facebook!

The 2010 Annual CAN Cultural Day & BBQ took place July 24, 2010!

Check out the pictures!

2010 Lunar New Year Celebration

View images here!

Three hundred members, staff and their families came out to celebrate this year’s annual Lunar New Year party held at the Locals 175 & 633 head office in Mississauga. Everyone enjoyed great food and prizes and a spectacular lion dance, led by Sammy Cheung, a unionized worker at Thistle Printing. The Lion Dance is said to keep away all bad and evil things.

Members from a number of workplace in the including Cargill, Burnbrae Farms, Maple Lodge Farms, Extendicare, Holiday Inn, Avon Sportswear, Wings, Grand River Foods, Erin Mills Lodge, Mobile Climate Control, Quality Knitting and Coleman Care Centre. President Shawn Haggerty, Secretary-Treasurer Teresa Magee, Executive Assistants Ray Bromly and Harry Sutton and many more staff also attended the event.

February 14, 2010 was the official start to the Lunar New Year, which is the year of the Tiger.

CAN sponsors winning film at reel Asian film fest

The Community Action Committee was a proud sponsor of the film Agrarian Utopia at the annual Reel Asian Film Festival in Toronto this past November. Director Uruphong Raksasad, from Thailand, took top prize for Agrarian Utopia, a film which follows the lives of two rural farming families trying to make ends meet during poor economic times.

On opening night, Local 175 Benefits Lawyer, Victoria shen, introduced the film and spoke about the various community work and initiatives your Union is involved in. The Community Action Network strives to strengthen our Local Union and the level of service to the members by building on the principles of commitment, respect, justice and equality for all, while representing and supporting the multiculturalism and diversity of our membership.

Locals 175 & 633 Chinese New Year celebrations attract a record number of members and their families

More than 500 people attended this 3rd annual event to celebrate the beginning of the Year of the Ox. The Ox is the sign of prosperity through fortitude and hard work.

For the first time this year, there were two celebrations to recognize both the Chinese New Year and the Lunar New Year. On Sunday, January 11, 2009 members from a number of downtown units including Quality Knitting, Wings Albany, Wings Torlake, Quality Meat Packers, Maple Lodge Farms and Toronto Abbatoirs attended an event in Toronto's Chinatown.

The following Saturday, on January 17, participants in the Mississauga Provincial Office celebration included members from Maple Lodge Farms, Cargill, Maple Leaf Foods, Olymel, Mobile Climate Control, Vera M. Davis Community Care Center and Compass Group working at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre. Both events were organized by Local 175's Community Action Network (CAN) committee and UFCW Canada.

The events offered camaraderie, good food, games and prizes. Members were entertained by a Dragon Dance, meant to chase away all bad and evil things from the year before, and many people tried their hand at breaking a bundle of chopsticks in half.

The bundle was unbreakable, but taken one by one, the chopsticks - as demonstrated by President Shawn Haggerty – were easily broken. Lien Huynh, Llocal 175 servicing rep and event organizer, explained that the game symbolizes the importance of solidarity among union members because together, we cannot be broken.

The Ontario Federation of Labour and the Instituto Nazionale Assistenza Sociale (INAS) can help members who have, or who have family members who may have, worked in Italy find out if they are eligible for a pension from Italy. Contact INAS at 416-240-1844 (Toronto), 905-529-8989 (Hamilton), 905-507-3189 (Mississauga), 905-837-2822 (Guelph) or 905-856-9926 (Woodbridge).

Locals 175 & 633 members and staff give generously of their time and money to support numerous community initiatives and events. Working Women Community Centre The mission of the Working Women Community Centre is ‘to provide immigrant women and their families with opportunities to improve the quality of their lives through self-development and community action.’

The centre promotes health education on breast cancer, fitness and violence prevention, and provides language instruction, caregiving classes, work placement preparation and a place for groups to meet. One of the programs offered through the centre that Locals 175 & 633 support is On Your Mark.

On Your Mark
In the spring of 2005, Locals 175 & 633 began supporting On Your Mark – an early intervention program to develop reading and writing skills for immigrant children. On Your Mark is offered through the Working Women’s Community Centre (WWCC).

Along with the Working Women Community Centre, the group was established in 2001 by the Portuguese-Canadian Coalition for Better Education and the Portuguese Interagency Network.

“No child should go without learning the fundamentals of reading and writing,” says Wayne Hanley, President of Local 175 UFCW Canada. “We are happy to see these children putting their new skills to use. This program will increase the number of opportunities available to them in the future.”

An analysis titled “Ethno-racial Inequality in the City of Toronto,” released in 2000, identified Portuguese-speaking communities as those with the highest drop out rates and the least likely to pursue post-secondary education.
Baker’s Apprenticeship Program

The Local Union also contributes to the Baker’s Apprenticeship program, a joint project of the WWCC and the Immigrant Women Centre. This project, recently approved by the Ministry of Education, helps participants attain skills and prepares them for the job of a baker. Read more...

The Local Union provides courses in health and safety, safe food handling and Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) to students as part of this apprenticeship program.

Sri Lanka Democracy Forum

Former Local 175 Organizing Rep (now National Rep) Kevin Shimmin is a founding member of the Sri Lanka Democracy Forum. Since its inception in 2002, the Local Union has supported its grassroots human rights activists in Canada and around the world including Sri Lankan Tamil, Sinhalese and Muslim communities and non-Sri Lankan supporters.

This is a peaceful activists group working to end the innumerable human rights violations committed in Sri Lanka and to find a peaceful resolution to the conflict.

Mayworks Festival

The Mayworks Festival of Working People and the Arts celebrates working class culture. The Festival was built on the premise that workers and artists share a common struggle for decent wages, healthy working conditions and a living culture. Mayworks' goal is to promote the interests of cultural workers and trade unionists, and to bring working-class culture from the margins of cultural activity onto centre stage.

The Local Union is one of the largest contributors to the annual Mayworks Festival.

Toronto District Catholic School Board – Youth at Risk Program

The goal of the Youth at Risk program is to reach to youth primarily in the Jamestown area of Toronto and facilitate their integration into the workforce through education courses.

The Local Union provides online health and safety related courses including Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) and WHMIS training to the youth involved in this project.

Community MicroSkills Development Centre

Locals 175 & 633 also provide health and safety training to at-risk youth and women through the MicroSkills Development Centre outreach program. This program also has a focus in the Rexdale neighbourhood of Jamestown (Martingrove and Finch area).

Jamestown is an ethnically divided area in the North West region of Toronto. Residents of the neighbourhood are mostly of Somali & Caribbean descent.

United Latinos of UFCW

The United Latinos of UFCW is a new group working to promote Latino culture and create a stronger bond between Latino UFCW members and their communities, and the labour movement.