Announcement: WAM Welcomes Harold Marcotte, Labour Forward Candidate for Secretary-Treasurer
The Labour Forward candidates extend a warm welcome to Harold Marcotte, joining the campaign for radical change in the CLC.
Early in his career while working in the nuclear industry, Harold was an active member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), where he cut his teeth on the picket line in a strike that lasted for over six months. With his first change of careers, he became a nuclear operator with Ontario Power Generation (OPG) and member of the Power Worker’s Union, progressing through the ranks into the nuclear operator training function he became a member of the Society, the professional union of OPG. With his most recent change of career in 2007, he became a Senior Examination and Certification Officer with the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC), a separate employer of the federal government, where his Union career blossomed when he became a steward, chief steward and since 2018 President of the Nuclear Regulatory (NUREG) Group of the Professional Institute of the Public Service (PIPSC). NUREG Group now represents 640 members.
As a steward, he has handled many employee relations issues including harassment, discrimination, plagiarism, job classification, individual, group and policy grievances. During his tenure as NUREG President, he served as the Consultation President for NUREG at the CNSC, Co-chair of the CNSC’s Policy Health and Safety Committee and Labour Management Consultation Committee (LMCC). Harold serves as a member of the Separate Employer’s Group, Strategic Bargaining Committee and Advisory Council of PIPSC.
As leader of the NUREG bargaining team during the last round of negotiations in 2018, he helped bargain a new collective agreement in record time where he convinced management to adopt the principle of interest- based negotiation for the first time ever and resulted in a much improved, no-concessions collective agreement for the first time in the history of the NUREG Group. That contract expires in March 2022.
Harold also represents NUREG on the CNSC COVID Incident Response Team instilling employee safety protocol and protective measures across the organization. He has regular meetings with the President of the CNSC and with members of her executive to provide consultation on all matters affecting his members and their collective agreement with an aim that proper corporate policies are developed and fairly implemented.
Instilling a workplace free of harassment and discrimination has been and continues to be a challenging portfolio for which Harold is most passionate. “Our NUREG Group has made great strides in guiding our members through their complaints and have been quite effective in bringing grievances and complaints to a successful conclusion for our members”.
Further enhancing his suitability for this position with regard to the knowledge and skills in the development and delivery of training for stewards is his previous years of extensive experience in adult training and education, not to mention that he continues to be responsible for the specialized advanced nuclear technical training at the CNSC.
He is also quite familiar with occupational and radiation safety in large construction sites, industrial buildings and corporates offices in addition to the operations of nuclear facilities as already mentioned. Harold’s career in nuclear operator certification training and examinations was formed on the foundation of over twenty seven years’ experience in the construction, operation and maintenance of nuclear generating stations in the three major nuclear power stations Ontario. For several terms, he taught several technical subjects at Durham College, in Whitby, Ontario, developing and delivering his own lesson plans, course material and examinations. Harold is well prepared to lend his expertise to our CLC steward training programs.
Harold identifies himself to you today as a person with a disability, although he has carried his disability in silence for many years. He has endured chronic pain and debilitation weakness from a damaged sciatic nerve in his left leg. The damage is permanent. “I was always afraid to come forward for fear that I will be overlooked or face discrimination because of my disability. I know there are many workers like me, who out of fear, do not reveal their disability”. There are also many workers like Harold who are also discriminated against because of ageism. “Seems that once you reach a certain age, you get overlooked for training and career development or even worse, get let go and replaced by a junior, because you’ve been around a long time and your wages cost the company too much money”.
As a steward, Harold has represented members with disabilities, sought accommodation for them from the employer or helped them navigate the minefield of health insurance claims and even medical retirement. He has also represented several members who have been brave enough to stand up against harassment and discrimination based upon their race, religion, sex and age – and under his leadership they have won every case that NUREG has taken on.
Under Harold’s NUREG Presidency he has initiated their NUREG Black Caucus, Indigenous Caucus and Francophone Caucus, supported several events and championed many issues including the movement to invite our indigenous brothers and sisters to share the wisdom of the “Healing Circle” into the CNSC workplace culture. “This will help solve internal conflicts, with the hope of spreading the good news throughout the public service and beyond.”
While Harold is not a professional bookkeeper or accountant he has a firm understanding of accounting principles, where serving as general manager of a 500 member non-profit charity organization for several years, his duties included being responsible for the books, pay the wages and benefits and report on income, expenses and charity tax returns. He feels confident in his ability to understand the principles of audited financial statements, budgets and tax reporting and sincerely values transparency and stewardship of the public purse.
Harold fully endorses the WAM platform with a belief that it is a time for assertive action, a time for change, a time to put the status quo in the rear-view mirror. “We can no longer watch and whimper as our union numbers diminish, our benefits are threatened and our wages erode. We cannot allow ourselves to be paralyzed with fear or captured by complacency. We need a paradigm shift, a wholesale change in leadership with the courage to change direction and plot a new course.” For example Instead of chasing after political parties, with numbers that grow smaller every year, hoping that they will adopt our principles and defend our issues, Harold believes we need to “build our membership exponentially so when we speak we do so from a position of power”. The political parties will then need to chase after our votes and seek ways they can support our cause. “Now is the time to organize the essential services who are unrepresented or underrepresented in the information and communication technologies, finance sector, health sector, the supply chain, farming sector, retail and wholesale, warehousing, transportation, manufacturing and elsewhere. We need to rebuild our base such that unrepresented workers look at us and say, “See how they look after one another, I want to be a part of that”. With real and visible action we can go viral.”