Date: 2012
Location: Calgary
Profile: Lynn Bue, lifelong feminist activist, was the first woman to be the Canadian Union of Postal Workers’ first vice-president, first chief national negotiator, and first openly LGBTQ2S+ member of the national executive. Raised on a Saskatchewan farm, Bue participated in feminist organizing in Regina and Saskatoon before moving to Edmonton in 1975. She began inside work with Canada Post one day before the Letter Carriers Union of Canada went on strike. Bue became a letter carrier in 1976.
She and her colleagues, facing sexual harassment by a male colleague, formed a women’s committee within their local. More women were letter carriers in Alberta than elsewhere because well-paying oil jobs limited Canada Post’s recruitment of men. Bue also joined the Alberta Federation of Labour Women’s Committee. As a labour militant, Bue was photographed in a chokehold by an anti-strike police officer during the 1987 LCUC strike. She was arrested in 1986 during the Gainers Strike. After the LCUC-CUPW merger (1989), Bue became a CUPW negotiator. In 1999 she became the national union’s first vice-president for two terms and then, as second vice president, headed union educational efforts. Bue is a foster mom and a member of CUPW’s national human rights committee.
Keywords: Canada Post; CUPW negotiations; Feminist organizing; Gainers strike; Human rights; Letter Carriers Union of Canada; LGBTQ2S+; Police violence in strikes; Sexual harassment; Women’s committees.
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See also: Alberta Federation of Labour; Canadian Union of Postal Workers; Occupational Health and Safety in Alberta; Women and Work in Alberta