OPSEU is Smokin' in Ontario

by P.D. Lesko

Just like the lyric from the "West Side Story" song, it's "alarming how charming" Smokey Thomas is. He has a strong Canadian accent, speaks rapidly and with a folksy warmth. Thomas laughs easily, and doesn't hesitate when he calls the democratic process in his own union a "pain in the ass"— or backtrack and ask that the comment be striken from the interview. In fact, his demeanor makes it difficult to believe that Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) members sometimes refer the Toronto-based organization as the "Lebanon of the labour movement" thanks to vicious political infighting during conventions and elections. Thomas, a member of the union for decades, is not outsider to the warfare. He is, however, not the least bit pretentious. Warren (Smokey) Thomas was elected president of Canada's Ontario Public Service Employees Union on April 20, 2007, after serving three terms (six years) as First vice president and Treasurer. The 55-year old registered practical nurse has been an OPSEU activist for 25 years beginning as president of Local 431 at the Ontario Psychiatric Hospital in Kingston, Ontario, where he represented more than 1,000 members. He was elected to OPSEU’s Executive Board in 1993.

Thomas was elected OPSEU president on a simple pledge to put the interests of the union’s 130,000 members first:
“I am a members-first president. That means my priorities rest with delivering strong services to our members. It means strong staff development so that they have the skills to provide good services to the membership. It means being nimble enough that when circumstances and issues suddenly change, as they inevitably do, we have staff that are skilled and well equipped to meet the challenges on behalf of the membership.”

He has participated in countless campaigns on behalf of OPSEU members and at the moment he is engaged in the largest single union drive in Canadian history. Thomas's union is attempting to organize all of the 12,500 part-time faculty employed throughout Ontario. If the drive succeeds, all of the province's part-time faculty will be represented by OPSEU, whether the group is placed in a distinct division within the union (kind of a union within a union), or within the existing full-time faculty division remains to be decided by the provincial government. To put the drive in perspective, it would be as if the AFT had launched a drive to organize every part-time faculty member at every community college in the state of Florida.

Smokey Thomas and I spoke by phone.

Q. You were elected President of OPSEU in April 2007. Ninety days later, the Canadian Supreme Court affirmed that collective bargaining rights are protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. That court decision opened up an opportunity to OPSEU to organize 12,500 part-time faculty employed throughout Ontario, and increase its membership to 132,000. Six months after you were elected, OPSEU launched the union to organize every single part-time faculty member at every single community college in Ontario. I have this image of someone in the saddle of a thoroughbred horse, preparing to ride, and then the horse just takes off unexpectedly. How's the ride going thus far?

Well, it's actually going very well. The drive's going very well. Out of the thousands and thousands of people who've signed the union cards, couple of things....we've had to find them one person at a time, because the employer claims they don't quite know who works for them, and they don't have offices. They might work eight hours a week, or three. So we've had to do on the ground sleuth work to find people, and our organizers—we've created 100 temporary organizers—talk to them about the union, what the benefits might be. The drive is growing exponentially.

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