A historic choice: Yolanda McClean elected CUPE Ontario president

TORONTO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Delegates at CUPE Ontario’s annual convention have elected Yolanda McClean, the union’s serving secretary-treasurer, to lead Ontario’s largest union.

McClean is the first education worker and the first Black woman to be elected president of CUPE Ontario, 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.

“My foundation, as CUPE Ontario president, is our collective legacy of labour action, solidarity and fighting for public services. And it’s that legacy that will inspire me, and all CUPE Ontario members, to take on the Ford Conservatives and their destructive, dangerous agenda.”

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.

“Doug Ford has made it his mission to weaken our democracy, privatize our common resources and destroy Ontario’s public services,” said McClean. “But our fightback is powered by workers – workers who are determined to stop Ontario being handed over to the wealthy and powerful, while workers are shut out.

“And as always, 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.

McClean 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. 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.

From her deep experience of the labour movement, McClean says CUPE Ontario “a fighting, progressive union because it is member-driven. And we must continue building inclusion, equity and respect into every part of our union, because we need every member in this fight.”

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