Some additions to the collective agreement signed last week between the Region of Waterloo and CUPE 1883 focus on inclusion and gender issues.
Besides securing job security and a wage hike for the roughly 850 employees it represents, the union also successfully lobbied for benefits that would provide voice therapy and sex-change surgery for its employees – a move uncommon in the municipal sector and the province of Ontario.
“We are pleased to get gender-affirming care into our collective agreement. We really want to be an inclusive workplace, and we think this is one way we are moving towards that. So that was a really big win for us. That was one privately when the region left the room, we were really cheering for,” union president Noelle Fletcher told The Observer.
