In July five members of the PSAC BC Young Workers Caucus attended a Young Workers retreat at Camp Jubilee, a summer camp on Indian Arm. This annual event, put on by the BC Federation of Labour provides a great opportunity to meet and network with other young workers. Young union members spend 3 days camping, sharing their experiences, attending workshops, and having some fun! Here are some photos and reports.
Camp Jubilee was such a great experience for us young workers. It really gave me an insight on how we can really make a difference in government and the workplace! Meeting all sorts of young workers from across Canada from different fields of work who all want to have a safe and fair work environment! The classes were educational, very interesting and a lot of fun! The course instructors were so energetic and funny and really got you motivated to want to make a difference and continue learning. There were lots of act ivies to do as well such as archery, canoeing and beach volleyball! I really enjoyed the last day when we had a scavenger hunt! I will definitely be returning to Camp Jubilee and recommend it to all young workers. It's a great experience and would hate for people to miss out on it!
Kristina B
The retreat was fabulous! Had a really awesome time, learned a TONNE! What an amazing environment! I hope to return next year and take another seminar.
Lyndsie M
Brothers and sisters,
I’ve just gotten back from a Youth Conference which is organised by the BC Federation of Labour on an annual basis. The Camp Jubilee Young workers retreat organised in Indian Arm is a conference which brings youth workers together from a multitude of labour movements, with youth members of CUPE, CUPW, UNDE, PSAC, BCFL to name a few.
We were ferried over from Deep Cove Docks to the retreat camp. The camp had one main Lodge which housed the workshops rooms and the dining hall. Surrounding the main lodge was about a dozen cabins which housed about ten individuals per cabin.
There were just under a hundred youth workers attending this retreat, many of the attending unionists were returnees, who attended once or twice before. I was particularly surprised to see 3 CUPW trade unionists from Whitehorse attending this conference; these two facts speak volumes in regards to the popularity of this Youth Retreat.
Before attending the conference, the attendees had to choose to attend one labour movement related skill workshop during the course of the weekend. The choices of skill workshops included Mobilizing Young Workers, intro to the labour movement, Green Jobs and Environmental justice, Politcal Action or Women’s rights. The workshop in which I participated was the Green jobs and Environmental justice workshop. This workshop discussed current hot topics such as cap and trade, carbon taxation and green initiatives.
The purpose of the camp was to have fun and learn something new in the process through different workshops and networking. The days were filled with fun activities such as archery, canoeing, scavenger hunt, talent show, camp fire marshmallows and s’mores.
The talent show included guitar playing and singing, one CUPW unionist did some stand up comedy, which contributed greatly to the huge success of the talent show which got rave reviews from the crowd.
One piece of information which I thought was very interesting was surrounding the definition of a youth member. Apparently, a youth worker is defined by the component in which the member belongs. For instance, at UNDE a youth worker is someone below the age of 30, but in other unions youth workers may be defined as members under the age of 35 or in some cases defined by the years of service of the member.
Solidarity Forever, was well represented at the retreat and by the end, everyone knew the Solidarity Forever song or at the very least the chorus.
At the end of the camp some new friendships had been formed and some new networking contacts were established. The interaction and exchange of information amongst the retreaters gave everyone a better perspective of the different labour unions that exist in the Canadian labour world.
Eric B