HSA Equity Summit
HSA is planning our union’s first ever Equity Summit to be held on February 19, 2025 – an opportunity to connect, learn and dream about what a more equitable working world could look like. If you’re a person who experiences marginalization, and/or share concerns about how the systems and structures of our world unfairly treat people based on social groups like race, gender, ability, class and more, the Equity Summit is for you.
The Equity Summit's theme will be Solidarity: Stronger Together. Discrimination hurts all of us, and everyone benefits when we work together in solidarity to build a better world. Programming will be a mix of speakers to inspire you and provide insights on human rights and equity from lived experiences, and will include keynote speaker Len Pierre.
The Equity Summit will be held at the Hyatt Regency Vancouver and attendees should expect to be present from 8:30 am to 5:00 pm.
Speakers
1. TBD
Len Pierre - information coming soon.
2. Union Solidarity in a Diverse Working Class
No union movement can succeed without a strong ethos of solidarity. Building such an ethos is especially challenging in an ethnically and racially diverse setting. In this talk I will explore the historical experience of solidarity-building and the contemporary landscape of the working class movement. I will suggest that even while much progress has been made, some of what is practiced in the name of solidarity can in fact be self-defeating for unions.
Vivek Chibber teaches sociology at New York University. He is the author of several books, including Confronting Capitalism: How the World Works and how to Change it (Verso:2022) and The Class Matrix: Social Theory after the Cultural Turn (Harvard: 2022), and Postcolonial Theory and the Specter of Capital (Verso: 2013) and is the editor of Catalyst: A Journal of Theory and Strategy
3. Equity, Empowerment and Solidarity: Building from the Ground Up
What role can unions and labour organizations play in reducing racial inequality in workplaces and society at large? Winnie Ng and Salmaan Khan will speak to the ongoing challenges facing racialized workers, and the best practices that unions need to adopt in order to effectively challenge systemic racism in a rapidly changing Canadian labour force.
Winnie Ng, PHD is a labour rights activist and scholar with a deep commitment to anti-racism, equity and worker empowerment. She is the former Unifor National Chair in Social Justice and Democracy at Toronto Metropolitan University, the first and only union-endowed Chair at a Canadian university. She began her activist work in the labour movement in 1977 as a union organizer with the International Ladies Garment Workers Union; and later on with HERE Local 75. She served as the Ontario Regional Director with the Canadian Labour Congress for 8 years before returning to the academy to complete her doctoral program at OISE/University of Toronto. She is the recipient of numerous distinctions, including the Urban Alliance on Race Relations Leadership Award, the United Farm Workers’ Cesar Chavez Black Eagle Award and the YWCA Women of Distinction Award. She is a founding member of the Asian Canadian Labour Alliance and the former co-chair of the Good Jobs for All Coalition.
Salmaan Khan, PHD is an Assistant Professor (Limited Term Faculty) in the Department of Criminology at Toronto Metropolitan University. His research interests are interdisciplinary and can be framed along three avenues: 1.) a broad focus on the gendered and racial dimensions of capitalist production; 2.) critical epistemologies and methodologies of the social sciences; and 3.) critical pedagogies and engaged learning practices. His research is underpinned by a political commitment to intersectional, anti-oppressive politics and a desire for social justice.
4. TBD
Adrienne Smith - topic forthcoming.
Applications to attend the Equity Summit are now closed. Thank you for your interest.
Space is limited to 75 members, and we are prioritizing members based on:
- Diversity of lived experience of systemic marginalization
- Regional diversity
- Occupational diversity
Knowledge of and/or experience with the union is valued but not required. If this is your first union event, you will be welcome.
Full applications will be viewed by staff support and then anonymized for review and selection by members of the Equity Summit Advisory Group. You name, contact information, and worksite will not be shown to committee members.
As per HSA policy, wage replacement, travel, and meal per diems will be provided. You will need to ensure you request the time off from your Employer once you are selected as an attendee. You will be provided with wage replacement for the equity summit if it is on your scheduled workday. If the meeting is on your day off, you are entitled to bank your time as paid union leave to be taken at a later date.
Note: If you are on Long Term Disability, any wages claimed or earned because of attending any workshop or union event must be reported to your LTD benefit provider. If these earnings are not part of an approved rehabilitation or return to work plan, they will likely be deducted from your disability benefits. This applies whether you take the payment right away or bank it. You also have the option of attending the event without claiming wages, and this will have no impact on your LTD benefit payments.