Dearest Comrades, Sisters, and Brothers,
Many of us know this trade unionist’s origin story: a worker witnesses an employer bullying them or a co-worker and decides to stand together with others—either by organizing a union or becoming active in the one they already have.
We know strength in numbers is the only way to confront a bully—someone who uses power to intimidate, exploit, or harm those they see as weak, vulnerable, or simply different. Whether that bully is a supervisor, a powerful political figure, or a kid on the playground, solidarity has always been the key to resistance.
I know this because I’ve faced all of those bullies in my life.
As 2026 marks my twentieth year as an elected officer of CUPE Ontario, I’ve been reflecting on what we have built together—and on how our collective strength has not only fortified our union, but sustained me personally.
I was first elected to the CUPE Ontario Executive Board in 1998. My Local had gone on strike the year before—the first CUPE Local to confront the Mike Harris Conservative cuts. I was 29 years old, acting President of a local of 1,200 social service workers, facing an employer determined to strip away more than 30 provisions of our collective agreement. I knew nothing about leading a strike, but I knew this: the attempt by our employer and the Harris Conservatives to bully away workers’ hard-won gains was wrong. And I knew our members’ resolve to stand together was unbreakable. Three months of unwavering solidarity on the picket line defeated every concession. That strike—led by majority women and racialized workers—shaped my trade unionism and compelled me to step forward into our broader union.
I went on to serve as a Member-at-Large and Vice-President on the CUPE Ontario Executive Board, and in 2006 was elected Secretary-Treasurer—the first social services worker and the first openly gay officer of our union.
As Treasurer, working alongside then-President Sid Ryan, I am proud of the lasting changes I was able to push forward, which were adopted by CUPE Ontario members. We moved from a flat-rate dues system to a percentage-based model, securing CUPE Ontario’s financial future. We introduced transparent accounting practices and independent auditing for the first time in our history. And we strengthened our capacity for political and campaign work by expanding staff resources.
When Sid was elected President of the Ontario Federation of Labour in 2009, I was appointed interim President by the Executive Board and later elected by the membership at Convention in May 2010. At that time, I became the first openly gay President of CUPE Ontario—and the first openly gay leader of a major union in Canada. I’m proud that this is no longer a singular milestone, as many 2SLGBTQ leaders now hold positions of leadership in CUPE and across the labour movement.
During my time as President, our members have confronted bullies of every kind: employers demanding deep concessions; governments imposing austerity to hollow out public services; Bay Street interests trying to convince workers to weaken their own pensions; and Premiers legislating away fundamental collective bargaining rights—and outrageously using the notwithstanding clause against CUPE education workers.
In the face of these attacks, I have been proud to fight back together with you in campaigns that have helped shape our union’s history and future.
Together, we have resisted privatization and contracting-out in all its forms. From leading the fight against the Wynne Liberals’ sale of Hydro One, to standing with municipal locals defending public water, waste, and recycling services, to opposing the rapid expansion of private health-care clinics—CUPE Ontario has become the province’s strongest voice for public services because of your work.
We strengthened strike support and affirmed, unequivocally, that when a strike or lockout is on, it becomes the priority of our union. I am especially proud that we began formally recognizing striking locals at our annual conventions—publicly honouring the courage of workers on the line. This marked a profound shift from earlier views that framed strikes as failures. Friends, fighting for justice is never a failure.
Throughout my time as an officer, we have also fought relentlessly to defend the OMERS pension plan. Over 160,000 CUPE members in Ontario depend on this defined-benefit plan, and inflation protection and indexation remain in place today because CUPE Ontario members organized, mobilized, and refused to back down. That fight continues as we resist renewed interference by the Ford Conservatives into our deferred wages.
We fought back against the McGuinty Liberals’ Bill 115 and Doug Ford’s Bill 124—both ultimately struck down by the courts for violating constitutionally protected collective bargaining rights. And we stood shoulder-to-shoulder with education workers when Ford used the notwithstanding clause in Bill 28 to strip away their right to strike. Their courageous, illegal strike electrified the labour movement and brought Ontario closer to a general strike than at any point in my lifetime.
Time and time again, we’ve seen Liberal and Conservative politicians try to roll back worker’s rights and hard-earned collective bargaining gains with the swipe of a legislative pen. That’s why we also built CUPE Ontario into a serious electoral force. More and more local leaders, activists, and rank-and-file members stepped into campaigns to elect candidates who share our values. We are a recognized force across the province during municipal elections, with councillors directly contacting our union to seek endorsements they see as important to their success, and certainly on the provincial and federal levels where our party, the New Democratic Party, has repeatedly acknowledged that the members they see most often in all riding election campaigns big and small are CUPE Ontario members!
Our vision has always extended beyond our workplaces and beyond Ontario. In 2006, CUPE Ontario became the first union body in North America to answer the call of Palestinian trade unions by endorsing boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) against the state of Israel for its human rights violations.
I’m deeply grateful to the activists who educated me—and our union—about Israeli apartheid and the Palestinian struggle for liberation, just as I’m grateful to those who connected me with trade unionists resisting repression in Iran, fighting for mining justice throughout Central and South America, and defending public services across the Philippines. In all that work with our trade union comrades around the world I have been reminded that the fight for workers’ rights is often waged in the face of overwhelming danger and even the threat of death.
Our continued support for BDS, reaffirmed over decades, has proven to be on the right side of history as we witness genocide in Gaza and intensified colonization in the West Bank. It reflects a deep understanding within CUPE Ontario that an injury to one is an injury to all—and that solidarity must be international.
We have also learned that fighting for justice requires accountability within our own union. Over the past 20 years, I’ve had the privilege of listening as equity-deserving members—particularly Indigenous, Black, and racialized workers—shared their experiences. During my time as President, CUPE Ontario was the first part of our union to expand our leadership to ensure full representation for all equity deserving communities, as well as northern, retiree and francophone representation. I chaired the Convention where Black and Racialized workers disrupted the proceedings to tell deeply personal stories and rightly call us all to account for internal racism in our union. This led to delegates unanimously adopting the first ever Anti-Racism Organizational Action Plan in any part of CUPE – and while there is still much work to do, this work has led to many positive changes.
In recent years, as right-wing forces have targeted Muslim, migrant, and 2SLGBTQ communities, CUPE Ontario has shown up—on the ground, in the streets, and in solidarity. We stood against Islamophobia in Peel, against xenophobic attacks on migrant and international student workers, and against the rise of anti-Trans hate. Solidarity is not symbolic; it is physical and collective.
This is the kind of unionism that frightens those in power. We are called “radical,” “uncompromising,” “socialist,” even “communist.” We are told to stay in our lane—as though workers’ lives are not shaped by the same forces of exploitation, colonialism, and inequality we confront every day.
What those in power will never understand is that these attempt to slur our union are something I, and many leaders and activists in our union view as a source of pride. Like the 2SLGBTQ community reclaiming language once used against us, CUPE Ontario must always be proud to raise the ire of those who spread hate. That we are the thorn in the side of those who value profit over people, who use privilege to hoard wealth or wield power to punish other simply because of who they are, is a badge of honour and a legacy of my time at CUPE Ontario that I will always wear with pride.
This is who we are. We fight for free collective bargaining. We fight forward—at the table, in the streets, and in the legislature. We practice social unionism rooted in justice, solidarity, and internationalism. We stand firm against bullies of every kind, and the world needs that strength now more than ever.
Serving as an officer of CUPE Ontario for the past 20 years has been one of the greatest honours of my life. It has been demanding, joyful, exhausting, and profoundly meaningful. Thank you for your trust, your solidarity, and your unwavering belief in collective power.
After two decades—and as the longest-serving officer at any provincial or national level in our union’s history—I know this moment also calls for renewal.
That is why I am writing to let you know that I will not be re-offering as President at the CUPE Ontario Convention this May.
If every trade unionist’s origin starts with rising up against a bully, every trade union leader’s story should include faith that the decision of the members is always right. Over these twenty years, my faith in you has never wavered—and it has never been disappointed.
This union has never belonged to any one person. Its strength has always come from the courage, clarity, and determination of its members. It’s time for you all to choose the next generation of leadership to take on the challenges our members continue to face. This is choice is an important one friends – and I know in making it you will never retreat from the militant force we have built; never relenting on our fight for justice here and around the world.
Governments will continue to test our rights. Employers will continue to demand concessions. Powerful interests will keep trying to divide working people from one another. But CUPE Ontario has never retreated from those fights, and I know it will not start now. What we have built together is strong, durable, and rooted in collective action.
While my role as President will come to an end, my commitment to this union will not. I will continue to stand with you—in solidarity, in struggle, and in hope—just as I always have.
Thank you for the trust you placed in me. Thank you for the work we have done together. And thank you for continuing to build a union that meets this moment with courage and conviction.
No matter my title, I am with you.
I have CUPE pink in my blood.
Solidarity forever, comrades, with gratitude and respect.
Fred Hahn,
CUPE Ontario President
