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Title: Create clean, green cities
Description: Municipal solid waste services are fundamental to the quality of life in our communities, our health and our environmental future. The challenge is to continue to reduce the amount of residential waste we create, and to capture the value of any waste created as a public resource. We must also extend waste reduction and recycling practices to all commercial and industrial activity. We cannot keep digging and filling up holes with our garbage or releasing toxins from its disposal into our air and water. In order to meet these challenges municipalities must retain accountability, flexibility and control over their solid waste services. Contracting out garbage services means municipalities lose control and flexibility to implement waste diversion programs like recycling and composting.
Identifier: solid_waste_en.pdf
Identifier (PID): yul:1156043

Title: Green Bargaining for CUPE Locals
Description: CUPE has a long history of climate change related educational materials, including: Healthy, Clean & GREEN: A Workers' Action Guide to a Greener Workplace (2015), which encourages workplace behaviours such as waste reduction, environmental committees and environmental audits; How to form a workplace environment Committee ; and an online, interactive Eco-audit tool to workers score their workplace behaviours related to energy conservation, recycling, water use, cleaning products, transportation, and workplace meetings. A very early document was the CUPE Green Bargaining Guide , published in 2008 and which provided examples of collective agreement language on many issues, including conservation, commuting, and establishing an environment committee
Identifier: ONLINE_Green_Bargaining_Guide-0.pdf
Identifier (PID): yul:1156040

Title: Public infrastructure builds a sustainable, equitable future
Description: Public infrastructure is an excellent investment. It provides valuable public services that improve the quality of life in our communities, and also has important short-term and long‑term economic impacts. Over the short term, public investment in infrastructure provides one of the strongest economic boosts to the economy in terms of stimulating growth and creating jobs. Over the long term, public infrastructure improves life for everyone, increases productivity, reduces costs for business and helps stimulate increased business investment. Canada's infrastructure deficit is over $150 billion. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) estimates that municipally-controlled water and wastewater facilities alone need an injection of over $50 billion to renew infrastructure in poor or very poor condition. Local governments also bear much of the additional infrastructure costs for climate change mitigation and adaptation. The 2013 floods cost the Province of Alberta and City of Toronto $3 billion. The annual costs of natural catastrophes are forecast to rise to $5 billion annually by 2020 and to over $20 billion annually in 2050.
Identifier: infrastructure_en_0.pdf
Identifier (PID): yul:1156037

Title: Working Harmoniously on the Earth: CUPE's National Environment Policy
Description: CUPE's National Executive Board has adopted an updated environmental policy in response to the deepening climate crisis. Building on our policy adopted by the Board in 2013, the new policy places even greater urgency on a bold response to the climate crisis. The policy calls for new ways of working and living based on public, renewable sources of energy, and an end to fossil fuels. It also highlights the need for strong Just Transition programs enshrined in federal legislation to support and uplift workers, and recognizes that climate change impacts racialized communities even more aggressively. We all have a role to play in fighting the climate crisis, and as Canada's largest union, we recognize we must take our part in that fight. We encourage all CUPE members to read the policy and consider what changes you can make in your local, your workplace, and in your community.
Identifier: Working_in_harmony_with_the_earth.pdf
Identifier (PID): yul:1156035

Title: Working Harmoniously on the Earth: CUPE's National Environment Policy - Updated 2021 version
Description: CUPE's National Executive Board has adopted an updated environmental policy in response to the deepening climate crisis. Building on our policy adopted by the Board in 2013, the new policy places even greater urgency on a bold response to the climate crisis. The policy calls for new ways of working and living based on public, renewable sources of energy, and an end to fossil fuels. It also highlights the need for strong Just Transition programs enshrined in federal legislation to support and uplift workers, and recognizes that climate change impacts racialized communities even more aggressively. We all have a role to play in fighting the climate crisis, and as Canada's largest union, we recognize we must take our part in that fight. We encourage all CUPE members to read the policy and consider what changes you can make in your local, your workplace, and in your community.
Identifier: cupe_environmental_policy_2021_eng.pdf
Identifier (PID): yul:1156031

Title: Healthy Clean and Green: A Worker's Action Guide to a Greener Workplace
Description: CUPE members have a workplace environmental guide at their fingertips. The booklet – entitled Healthy, Clean & GREEN: A Workers' Action Guide to a Greener Workplace – shows workers what steps they can take to make their workplaces environmentally sustainable. Climate change, waste reduction and environmental rights are some of the issues covered in the publication. Action is at the centre of Healthy, Clean and GREEN. The booklet spells out what CUPE members can do at work and in their communities to tackle some of the pressing environmental problems we face.
Identifier: green_booklet_0.pdf
Identifier (PID): yul:1156027

Title: How to form a Workplace Environment Committee
Description: Workplace environment committees deal with environmental issues in the workplace. Like other workplace committees that have specialized interests, an environment committee looks at ways to improve the environmental record of the workplace. These committees can go by different names, such as the Green Committee or the Green Team. Sometimes, environment committees are made up of worker and employer representatives. Sometimes, unionized workers set up their own worker-only environment committee. Unlike some other committees, such as health and safety committees, there is no law in any Canadian jurisdiction that states workplaces must have an environment committee. Therefore, these committees are either set up voluntarily by workers and the employer or – in some cases – they are set up as a result of the collective bargaining process. CUPE recommends that its members set up either a workers-only environment committee or a joint worker/employer environment committee. Sometimes, joint health and safety committees extend their mandate to take on environmental issues. However, a separate environment committee that focuses only on green issues is the better way to go to ensure that workplace environmental issues are front and centre for the committee.
Identifier: enviro-committees-fact-sheet1.pdf
Identifier (PID): yul:1156026

Title: You can help your workplace go green: How to form a workplace environment committee
Description: Workplace environment committees deal with environmental issues in the workplace. Like other workplace committees that have specialized interests, an environment committee looks at ways to improve the environmental record of the workplace. These committees can go by different names, such as the Green Committee or the Green Team. Sometimes, environment committees are made up of worker and employer representatives. Sometimes, unionized workers set up their own worker-only environment committee. Unlike some other committees, such as health and safety committees, there is no law in any Canadian jurisdiction that states workplaces must have an environment committee. Therefore, these committees are either set up voluntarily by workers and the employer or – in some cases – they are set up as a result of the collective bargaining process. CUPE recommends that its members set up either a workers-only environment committee or a joint worker/employer environment committee. Sometimes, joint health and safety committees extend their mandate to take on environmental issues. However, a separate environment committee that focuses only on green issues is the better way to go to ensure that workplace environmental issues are front and centre for the committee.
Identifier: WorkplaceEnvironmentCommitteeFactSheet.pdf
Identifier (PID): yul:1156017