Who Are We?

Linda Briskin has been a union activist all her working life. She is currently a member of the York University Faculty Association (YUFA). She got involved in the English-speaking women’s movement in Montreal in 1969. When she was teaching high school, she was involved in the 1972 Common Front Strike in Québec. In Toronto, she was actively involved in the International Women’s Day Committee. At Sheridan College, as a member of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU), she helped organize the first OPSEU provincial women’s committee in the 1970s and was later a representative on it. More recently, she co-ordinated the first Equity Committee of the York University Faculty Association (YUFA) following the two-month faculty strike. She also co-chaired the Status of Women Committee of the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations (OCUFA). She is currently a Professor in the Social Science Department and the School of Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies at York University. She has written extensively on women and unions.

Sue Genge is a long-time activist in the women’s and labour movement, with a strong committment to equality issues. She was involved in CUPE for many years in her local at Metro Library in Toronto, as Chair of the Ontario Division Women’s Committee and a member of the Ontario Federation of Labour Women’s Committee. She was active in the Equal Pay Coalition, Organized Working Women and the International Women’s Day Committee. Sue was one of the first labour sidespeople at the Ontario Pay Equity Tribunal, charged with enforcing the provinces pay equity legislation. As National Representative in the Women’s and Human Rights Department of the Canadian Labour Congress, Sue led the Congress’ work on glbt issues, pay equity, violence against women, women’s leadership development and on and on. She was also the CLC’s rep on a number of national women’s coalitions including NAC and the 2000 World Women’s March. She now lives happily in Rainy Cove (Nova Scotia) and continues to protest injustice from this lovely area of the world.

Margaret McPhail is retired after 35 years as a secondary school teacher and member of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation. A committed feminist, she has been active on a range of equality, social justice, and education issues for many years, both inside the school system and in the community. This includes involvement with Organized Working Women, International Women’s Day Committee, Ontario Equal Pay Coalition and Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care. In recent years, Margaret was elected as a local OSSTF/FEESO representative in Toronto, and later worked as staff at the OSSTF/FEESO provincial office, where her primary responsibilities concerned organizing around women’s equality issues, as well as labour and social justice coalitions and political action.

Marion Pollack is a recently retired postal worker, a long time activist in the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, and a strong and committed feminist. She has held Union positions in her local, in her region, and at the National level. She was the first Vice President of the Vancouver and District Labour Council for many years. Marion has worked to raise women’s issues in the labour movement.   She has been a Board member of Everywoman’s Health Centre — a free standing abortion clinic in Vancouver.   She is on the Board of the Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women (CRIAW).