CAW UNION Pride Conference
May 4, 2009 by Billy O'Neill
Comments (0)
I thought the message in this presentation i deleivered at the CAW Education Centre for the 2009 Pride conference was worthy of sharing......
While the LGBT community has made gains at the bargaining table and in the courts over the years, there remains much work to be done to Eliminate Harassment and Discrimination in Our Workplaces and Communities.
It is important to Honour these achievements but sadly we must take time to examine the more negative events taking place in the LGBT community.
Everyone should have the right to live Life Free of Hate and Fear...
Homo/Lesbo/Bi/Transphobia is Systemic in Our Society;
A few months back CAW members where present at a Rally for Peace in support of Anji and Jane, a lesbian couple who where verbally and physically attacked while picking up their children at Gordon b adersley school in oshawa.
Homophobia lead 13-year-old Shaquille Wisdom a student at Ajax High School to hang himself on Oct 20 2008 after being bullied for being Gay
There's research that students who are Homosexual or who are perceived to be Homosexual are more vulnerable to Bullying. There's a higher suicide rate among those kids." (The suicide rate of gay/lesbian youth is three times higher than heterosexual youth)
These stories are all to prevalent in Canadian Schools and this is a critical issue that the Government and Education Ministers are aware of yet we have not seen much action taken to address these issues.
It is OUR Responsibility to ensure a Safe Space for all Students.
15-Year Old Larry King Was Murdered By A Classmate Because He Asked Him To Be His Valentine in Oxnard, California on Feb 12 2008
18 year old Angie Zapata was brutally murdered in Greeley, Colorado in July 17 2008. Angie was a transgender woman and she was murdered because of anti-transgender bias.
Trans Gender Americans face a 1 in 12 chance of being murdered.....
While these are just a few of the more recent homophobic incidents
How can we consider ourselves a just society when merely for being LGBT we open ourselves up to being condemned, bullied, ridiculed, and beaten, or in some cases killed?
We were outraged when Matthew Sheppard was murdered in 1998 and we had hoped that the media attention brought forward at that time would help educate society and that it would have been the last murder simply because someone was gay.
For those who are not familiar with this case, Matthew was a gay 21-year old Wyoming college student who had been taken to the desert, tied to a wooden fence, beaten and pistol whipped and left for dead.
He was found 18 hours later, rushed to hospital, where he lingered on the verge of death for five days before he succumbed to his injuries, all because he was gay.
Egale Canada's National Climate survey on Homophobia in Canadian schools,
Returned heartbreaking results
Fewer than half of the students participating in the survey felt comfortable talking to their parents about queer issues.
Over half reported that they have been verbally harassed because of their sexual orientation.
Almost half (49 per cent) have had rumours spread about them at school.
and a third (31 per cent) had rumours spread on the Internet or through text messages because they are queer
Over a quarter have been physically harassed because of their sexual orientation.
We have learned in the past that silence becomes deadly. If we don’t speak out about homophobia, we will continue to see our youth face the same ridicules as past generations.
Most often, the last place LGBT members have come out is in their workplace, feeling threatened due to the financial dependence on the job. Homophobia still exists in our places of work although it has become subtle. Violence has sometimes been replaced with psychological bullying or teasing, hurtful in nature.
We are aware that education will sometimes bring resistance, but to do nothing is not an option. Our hope is to establish a workplace and community free of fear regardless of sexuality or gender identity
Get involved
May 17th the internation day against homophobia
I encourage our members to join us on May 17th in their workplaces to help distribute our educational material focused on the elimination of homophobia and transphobia.
With your help, we can continue to change the world on workplace at a time
You have the opportunity to replace fear and prejudice with love and equality.
To some, it may seem like an uphill battle in fighting injustice, but through education we can bring understanding. Your determination serves as a driving force for campaigns that take place on this day and every day in the LGBT community.
Our society grows stronger when we speak out. The openness, visibility and participation of LGBT people within our communities families and workplaces will help to break barriers
We bring events to the forefront so that you understand some of the issues that the LGBT community faces. It is shockingly clear that there remains much work to be done to fight this great injustice that is homophobia.
I encourage everyone to do their part to fight oppression within our society. Oppression builds barriers to equality by reinforcing incorrect beliefs and ideas about minority groups.
When we truly accept that homophobia affects our communities and workplaces, we then have the opportunity to denounce such behaviour. Victims of homophobia are some-one's child, parent, brother, sister, uncle, aunt, friend or co-worker.
The LGBT community has been faced with discrimination and violence, increased substance abuse, higher rates of depression, anxiety, isolation and sadly higher rates of suicide than that of the heterosexual community.
These health risks are not due to sexual orientation itself, but rather the negative response from some members of society. Homophobia is killing us at an alarming rate.
Hate crime stats in Canada
Stats Canada recent survey
1 in 10 hate crimes was motivated by sexual orientation
Hate crimes often target a person's core sense of identity and can result in more severe psychological consequences and longer recovery periods.
More than half of all hate crimes motivated by sexual orientation are violent
More than one-half (56%) of those incidents driven by hatred towards a particular sexual orientation were violent, higher than the proportion of incidents motivated by race/ethnicity (38%) or religion (26%). Common assault was the most frequent type of violent offence.
As a result, incidents motivated by sexual orientation were more likely than other types of hate crime incidents to result in physical injury to victims.
I ask you to reach out and become an ally in your workplace or lobby government for change
On a final note,
I would like to share a list of demands you can pass on to your elected officials
We need a Government who governs for all people in Canada in a Fair and Equitable manner.
We need a Government who will ad “gender identity” or ‘gender expression’
To the list of prohibitive ground of discrimination under The Charter of Canadian Rights and Freedoms and as protective categories in the Canadian Criminal Code under the Hates Crime provision.
We need a Government who will remove unfair barriers to women who are currently not allowed access to reproductive fertility services because they have no male partner.
We need a Government who will base restriction on donating blood, organs and bone marrow, on risk factors not sexuality.
We need a Government who will deal with Homophobia and Transphobia in schools, communities and workplaces NOT a Harper government that is Homophobic.
Thank you for your time
Who Am I
April 25, 2009 by Billy O'Neill
Comments (1)
I grew up in the Industrial Coal Mining Town of Glace Bay Cape Breton Island in the Province Of Nova Scotia, Canada. The people of Glace Bay are a hearty bunch who understands the value of family, a hard day at work and hold strong to the sense of community.
Glace Bay at one time was the largest town in Canada; it was created to supply coal to the French Fortress of Louisburg. Bay of Glace as it was know due to the Ice jams during the winter months. The industrial age helped create a town and a people mostly immigrants from Newfoundland, Ireland, Scotland, Russia and Italy.
Discrimination was encouraged by the mine managers, you see they would try to play one group of workers against the other, tell the Italian workers that the Irish where mining more coal. This separate but equal mind frame was abused often, you see it wasn’t until the Union came along that it was discovered that all workers should be treated equal, that all workers would face the same dangers on not returning to their families if there should be a roof cave in or mine explosion.
It was the work of the people the formation of the union that has helped to make me who I am today. I grew up hearing of mine explosions or fires, not nearly as often as the early days, but still too often. This reduction was in fact a direct result of workers unions demanding safer workplace rules. This reduction was due to the collective bargaining that now ensured maximum hours of work, fair wages and better monitoring of safety concerns.
Prior to fair and equitable pay the miners lived in Company houses, many still standing today yet now owned by the people instead of the control of the capitalist structure. At one time it would be fair to say, that the Company owned its workforce and controlled their will. The families would shop at the company store, live in a company house and receive their water and electricity from company sources. These company homes provided a meager standard of comfort yet it was home, and prior to women becoming more active in the workforce they where active in their own careers of managing a household, and maintain the family.
The early days of Unions where faced with struggles and disappointment more often than rewards for fair wage in return for hard work. The government at the time would back the company and interfere with Labour negotiations. If the workers where to go on strike, credit in the stores would be cut off, next the workers would have their water and hydro cut off. Families where larger and many workers had infants and small children at home who where gravely affected by these actions. It is important not forget about the elderly and sick who also lived with their children or relatives and would also be greatly affected by the companies actions to stop the flow of food and electricity.
This inhumane action taken by the Company Police and inaction by the government of the day had outraged the Miners and they where determined to restore the Power at the local generating plant. With the gathering of Miners and their families, the Company police started firing randomly to fall the front line. The miners ran through the woods and came back around to surround the company police. The crowd turned angry and began hitting the police and taking a blow of frustration for the greed the corporation had brought about. Although the workers had won this battle they where left with a great sadness, many where injured and William Davis was killed at the New Waterford Lake riot on 11 June 1925.
Although Coal Mines in Cape Breton are a thing of the past, the people still take time on June 11 to remember William Davis and all other miners who where killed on the job. The people of Cape Breton became aware that they needed to stand united to achieve better working conditions but are also aware that certain gains would come later.
I think for me there is a lesson in this story, it reminds me that company and government officials are not the friends of workers.
Although times are different and the faces have changed Unions in present day are still facing Union Busting actions by Greedy Corporations and Government officials. The government has brought about weak trade laws that allow corporation the ability to close their factories and import their products without regard to the working class. The corporations manipulate workers with the fear of poverty and plant closures while offering a new found dream to workers in other provinces, states or Countries who will work with less safety protections, less wage and less control over their own fate.
Just a thought…. Billy
|