Inuit NEU members asked for culture days

As a shop steward and a union activist, I’ve represented many union members over the years who are Inuit.

One of the frequent and very frustrating problems they have encountered has been working in a place where their employer doesn’t understand that you go to hunt whale when the whales come; that you go to be with your friend when she’s giving birth because you’ve been asked to be there to help and support.

Having a request for leave denied because your collective agreement doesn’t mention these things, and your supervisor doesn’t understand, has been a very painful experience for some. Others have just walked away from their jobs.

The Nunavut Employees Union went to all members last year and asked them to identify the biggest problems and the biggest concerns so that the union can properly represent them in bargaining a new contract.

Members of our union said, loudly and clearly, that they want the needs and reality of their culture protected and recognized in the workplace. The union does that through negotiation and placing the issue in the collective agreement so union members have a protected right that cannot be dismissed out of hand.

Mr. Taylor [Mitch] speaks as an elected representative of NEU members and he is only conveying the message we have received from our members.

Respectfully, there is no “institutionalized agenda” here, rather, a very human agenda of working to build a workplace that respects and reflects the needs identified by the unionized Inuit (and non-Inuit) working within it.

Mary-Lou Sutton
Iqaluit