As we continue to expand on International Women’s Day, we asked Olena Sokolova for her perspective on women within unionism and the importance of collective bargaining.
Olena is an ATU 583 Shop Steward who has also spent quite a lot of her personal time volunteering with the Local. Prior to being elected as a Shop Steward, Olena was a Job Steward and has represented dozens of her fellow Members in call ins.
Olena offers an interesting perspective as someone who was born outside of Canada and we are grateful for this insight and her sharing it with her fellow Members.
“I was born in a country where unions were vital to any form of occupational organization. It was shocking for me upon arrival to Canada, to discover how many work positions are unprotected here.
I have been with transit for 14 years and for much of this time my past experience in unionized positions resulted in me initially taking the benefits provided by the union for granted. It took time for me to develop an understanding of what non-unionized work looks like in Canada. Having now developed a much stronger understanding of the importance of union advocacy in both Canada and Calgary Transit, I now also understand how necessary it is to participate in union advocacy. I have seen Transit Operators be taken advantage of almost everywhere throughout my time working at Calgary Transit unless they both knew our rights and how to advocate for themselves. I want to play my part in reducing exploitation of our operators and insist for our rights to be met by Calgary Transit.
Covid-19 showed me how quickly we can lose our occupational benefits and effort involved in keeping what we have, while pushing forward for the benefit of Calgary Transit operators. I had already been slowly working towards becoming part of the union right before Covid-19, but the sudden possibility of our members losing the protections we have worked so hard for really showed me the importance of participating in collective action/bargaining. Because of experience, I went to the Union to ask about becoming a Steward.
In my time within the Union, I have met a lot of wonderful people and have started to become a part of the women’s committee. I really appreciate that I have been able to meet people with similar points of view to me and have had opportunities to participate in creating change within Calgary Transit. Every person has something to add to the process, but women have experienced unique struggles and conditions and because of this they have had to fight for protections that help the collective. We have been the main collective force in a lot of change in history and often were the ones to organize events and meetings that created success for politicians.
We are unprotected without bargaining agreements. I want to be a Steward to help with collective action to make sure this does not happen and to make the current rights we have even stronger.”
Thank you, Olena, for sharing your perspective and these critical observations!
COPE 397 /jw
