First Black Woman Leads CUPE Ontario

By Neil Armstrong

Yolanda McClean, who until recently served as secretary-treasurer of CUPE Ontario, has been elected president by delegates at its annual convention to lead the province’s largest union.

She is the first education worker and the first Black woman to be elected president of the union which represents more than 300,000 members working in the public sector.

“I am humbled and honoured to have been chosen by CUPE members to serve in this role,” said McClean who has moved up through the ranks and experienced racism in her journey.

“I feel that this role will give me an opportunity to show others that there are places that I’m in that they can also be, that through the systemic barriers, conflict, and some turmoil there is success,” she said, noting that she wants to give hope to the people who come after her.

McClean, who represents CUPE as an executive vice-president at the Ontario Federation of Labour and is president of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists for Canada, hopes they can see themselves reflected in roles of union leadership and help make a difference in people’s lives.

She has also served on CUPE’s national’s executive board, first as its diversity vice-president for racialized members, and currently as regional vice-president for Ontario.

McClean wants CUPE Ontario to be proactive ahead of time than reactive to issues facing its members such as education, childcare, and to be more organized than ever.

She will work with CUPE locals and broader labour organizations so that the union’s concerns are heard and members can support the candidates that are elected in the upcoming municipal election, as well as run in it.

Her commitment includes holding the Doug Ford Conservative government accountable. “They’ve been on the attack on public workers for some time. We’ve got rallies almost every week across the province around the closure of hospital rooms, long waits, no hospital beds; that is not acceptable,” she said, noting that education workers are getting ready for a fight of their lives.

McClean traces her trade union activism to her early days as a library technician with the Toronto District School Board. There she became a member of CUPE 4400 and rose through the ranks of her union as an activist who never turned her back when issues of justice and fairness were at stake.

She said it is women and members of Indigenous, Black, racialized and 2SLGBTQIA+ communities who are most at risk and who suffer the most when public services are undermined, because public services are our greatest equalizers.

Over the years, McClean has honed her labour activism and reinforced her commitment to public services in a succession of elected positions in the labour movement. She served as CUPE Ontario’s second vice-president for a decade and has served as CUPE Ontario’s secretary-treasurer for the past four-and-a-half years.

She said CUPE Ontario is “a fighting, progressive union because it is member-driven” and must continue building inclusion, equity and respect into every part of the union because every member is needed in the fight.

McClean’s tenure follows that of outgoing president Fred Hahn who has served in that capacity since 2010, and in February this year announced that he would not seek re-election. Hahn was the first openly LGBTQ+ person to lead CUPE Ontario.

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