Year: 2011, 2015
Location: Edmonton
Profile: Karen Kennedy was born in Nova Scotia. Moving to Edmonton in 1974 to work in the post office, she became a member of Canadian Union of Postal Workers Local 730. She started on the midnight shift sorting mail, observing that women outnumbered men but were treated as inferiors on the work floor and the union. After a grievance resulted in poor treatment from a manager, Kennedy volunteered as a Local 730 shop steward, later also becoming recording secretary. She participated in several CUPW strikes, including the 1981 nationwide strike which won CUPW members paid maternity leave, advancing that cause for all Canadian women. She joined other fights for women’s rights, including campaigns against workplace harassment. Kennedy helped establish 730’s Women’s Committee in 1999. The Committee held annual conferences to promote educational opportunities, supported community initiatives, and helped develop many women union activists. Kennedy later served as 730 secretary-treasurer for ten years after 1998, and as an editor, writer, and cartoonist for The Inside Out newsletter. Over her lengthy postal worker and union career, Kennedy witnessed significant changes in the postal business, from including job-reducing mechanization, but also continuing union militancy against a harsh employer.
Keywords: CUPW Local 730; CUPW National Women’s Committee; CUPW strikes; Mail sorter; Mechanization; Paid maternity leave; 730 Women’s Committee; Union education; Women of CUPW; Workplace harassment of women.
Interview Transcripts (Download PDFs): 2011, 2015
Karen Kennedy appears with Bena Pattni in a video about the CUPW Women’s Committee:
See also: Canadian Union of Postal Workers; Women and Work in Alberta