Robin Kers Union Page
Tobacco picking in Delhi, Ontario
Diane's pages
I have suckered and picked tobacco in Delhi,Ont., picked apples in Osoyoos, B.C., emptied boxcars of oil drums and frozen sides of beef in Churchill, Man., rode horseback on a three day cattle drive in Barriere, B.C., loaded flatbeds with tons and tons of anchor chain in Vancouver, B.C., jump started and drove off with seized (repossessed) logging equipment in Northern B.C., baled hay in three provinces, and the list goes on. In 1981 I started working for the Federal Government of Canada.
I was appointed to my first government position with Revenue Canada in Vancouver. I was promoted from the position of income tax collector to that of collections investigation officer in 1983 and transferred to Ottawa in 1985 after promotion to the position of training and development officer. I left Revenue Canada to join the Immigration Refugee Board in Calgary in 1988 as one of the first 35 Counsel to the Board.
It was at the Calgary IRB where I first became a union activist with the Canada Employment Immigration Union for which I served as Shop Steward and local Vice-President point of service. My unfair labour practices complaint against management of the Calgary office resulted in my transfer to Montreal IRB in 1992. There I was first elected local President, then National Coordinator and finally as the first National Vice-President for all members of CEIU employed by the IRB across Canada.
During this period, I learned of the trade union history of my grand-father who was a member of the Sociaal Democratische Arbeiders Partij (Social Democratic Labourers Party) and an officer of the Dutch railway machinist union, the Nederlandse Vakbond Van Spoorwegen Personeel, now known as the FNV Bondgenoten . During the Nazi occupation of Holland, he took part in the 1941 February Strike , the 1943 April-May Strike and the 1944 strike in support of the Allies Operation Market Garden.
I also learned that my mother had been an employee of the largest Dutch office-workers union, Algemene Bond Mercurius (after a number of mergers now part of FNV, the Netherlands version of the Canadian Labour Congress.) before emmigrating to Canada. It must be in the blood!
Over the years, I have Chaired CEIU's By-Laws Committee, Co-Chaired the Convention By-Laws Committee and served on the Finance Committee, National Immigration Committee, CEIU-OPEIU Collective Bargaining Committee and the Structure Committee. While at the Immigration Refugee Board and in my capacity as the National Vice-President CEIU-IRB, I Co-Chaired the National Labour Management Consultation Committee, the Policy Safety and Health Committee and was the "union" member of the Advisory Committee on Employment Equity as well as various other working groups. In 2002 I was awarded the Queen's Golden Jubilee medal for my work on employment equity at the IRB.
On November 21, 2002 I retired from the public service and consequently resigned my position as NVP CEIU-IRB to accept a staff position as the National Resource Officer at CEIU's Headquarters in Ottawa.
While working for CEIU, I served three terms as the President of Local 225 of the Canadian Office and Professional Employees Union (COPE), the union to which employees of CEIU belong, and one term as a Vice-President of the COPE Ontario Executive Board.
In July of 2009 I accepted a two year secondment to the Union of Solicitor General Employees as a Labour Relations Officer. I currently service its membership employed by the RCMP, the Department of Justice and the Public Prosecutions Service of Canada in Western and Northern Canada as well as its membership at Public Safety Canada, Commission for Public Complaints against the RCMP, Canadian Human Rights Commission, Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.
As a consequence of my secondment with USGE I was obliged to resign my position as President of COPE Local 225 and joined the Alliance Employees Union, Unit IV, where I do not currently hold office.
I invite you to visit the AEU home page for more information about my union.
I also invite you to explore the newly re-designed PSAC and USGE web sites for an excellent overview of collective bargaining, pay equity, labour relations and other issues faced by Canadian government workers.
AEU, USGE and the PSAC
Alliance Employees Union, an unaffiliated independent trade union.
Union of Solicitor General Employees
A Component of the Public Service Alliance of Canada representing 15 thousand plus members who work for the Government of Canada at 17 organizations including the RCMP, Corrections Canada, the Department of Justice, CSIS and others.
Public Service Alliance of Canada
PSAC Locals that are grouped under one or more federal government departments form a Component and together, these Components form the bulk of the Alliance.
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