Have you seen the SWOT team?

The sensational six members of the SWOT team (Alan, Maggie, Dave, Kerilyn, Jim and Ellen) may be visiting your community soon! We have lots of presenations booked at schools and training centres throughout Manitoba right up until February.

Presentations are free-of-charge to schools. We prefer to speak to groups of 35 students or less at one time and we'll adapt our presentation length to your timetable. So, if your classes are 70 min. long, we'll do a 70 min. presentation.

We appreciate three weeks notice for booking presentations.

If you are interested in having us come to your school please contact our office at (204) 992-9988 or e-mail presentations@workersoftomorrow.com

Sturgeon Creek - Thursday morning

The picture above shows one of the Senior 1 classes at Sturgeon Creek watching the "7 Things You Should Know" video.

Dave and I did the presentation this morning over the course of one class. It was short and to the point.

I guess the one thing that we stressed was just to ask questions if you're unsure of how to use a piece of equipment or if you're not sure what kind of Personal Protection Equipment to use when working with a chemical.

Ste. Anne Elementary

This afternoon Maggie and I went out to Ste. Anne to do a presentation for a group of grade 8 students. (Thanks for the mugs!) Some of the students live on farms so we got to talk about staying safe around machinery. Maggie used to live on a farm so she knows all about how important it is to make sure that guards stay on machines while you are working with them. The whole point of guarding is to make sure your hands, arms, legs and clothes stay out of the machine! For more info on farm safety you can check out http://www.gov.mb.ca/agriculture/farmsafety/

Louis Riel Arts & Tech. Centre

Myself and one of our volunteer speakers (Rick) did a presentation this morning at Louis Riel Arts & Tech. Centre. The program that these young workers were in was Building Construction. As you all can imagine there are many, many hazards involved with this industry. Rick was perfect for this presentation because of all of his experience and knowledge of this industry. It was neat to listen to all the other work experience that people have had before entering their program of choice. I wish you all the best in your career and remember to work safe.

New Directions - T.R.Y. presentation

Dave and I just dropped a SWOT presentation on the Training Resources for Youth program at New Directions. It was great.

A couple of the young women were under the impression that babysitting isn't really a "job." But, it really is and there are some definite hazards involved in the job.

Babysitters often have to WORK ALONE. This is a workplace hazard because if something happens to you, there's nobody there to know. It's also a hazard for the child because if you slip, fall and get knocked out, there's nobody watching the kid.

So make sure that if you are ever asked to work alone by a boss or supervisor that there is a WORKING ALONE PLAN in place so that at least one other person will know if you get hurt or injured, or whatever.

The pictures show the classroom at the T.R.Y. program (no faces are visible, as usual).

Marymound School Chat Session

Alan and Myself had the awesome opportunity to deliver our S.W.O.T. message to two groups of young workers at Marymound School today. They shared their experiences with us that ranged from working on places like the farm, the fast food industry, as bicycle technicians, babysitting, the health care industry and many more.

One young worker had mentioned how she was exposed to dirty water that cows had been hanging around in. This is was a great opportunity for Alan and I to talk about "Biological Hazards" (like bacteria called ecoli) that young workers can be exposed to and that they need to be aware of. Thanks for the great story!

With permission, Alan and I wanted to share a comment that was given to us by one young worker that made us feel real good about what we are doing.
The Question in our Student Survey reads "Did you learn anything new? What?"
The answer from the young worker was "I have a voice in my job about my safety"

Thank you so much Marymound we had a great time, and lunch was wonderful!

Dave and Kerilyn at Sturgeon Creek Collegiate

Kerilyn and I presented to an S1 class. Mike Waite from the Manitoba Safety Council was there observing. There was good discussion among the students. Some very interesting comments were made about workplace hazards. There was not much workplace experience among the students, but they were attentive nonetheless. One gets the feeling they were interested in what we said, but they are just not sure where to apply it at this time. We are certain that young future workers will remember the info when they start working very soon. We shall return again to the home of the Scooners!

-Dave

BRIDGE Presentation

We did a SAFE Workers of Tomorrow presentation to the BRIDGE Program at Shaftesbury today. It went well.

The group had some good work experience and one girl actually had worked for more employers than me.

One of the guys told us a pretty crazy story from when he worked construction; he had to work on a ladder that had it's legs grounded on a sheet of wood that was placed between a couple of beems. This ladder was higher than 8 feet off the ground, so he should have been wearing fall protection. He also said that one of his co-workers actually fell off that ladder on a separate occasion because the base was so wobbly... luckily for him, he wasn't seriously injured.

In this case, the guy should have been told that he needs to wear fall protection while working at a height above 8 feet (The Right To Know). He also had the right to refuse the unsafe work and ask his supervisor to provide him with a safer way to get his work done (The Right To Refuse Unsafe Work).

This picture is of Alan and Dave presenting.

The Staff Retreat

Last week we all went to Oak Hammock Marsh to go over team priorities, discuss strategies and prepare for the up coming school year of SAFE Workers of Tomorrow presentations.

Maggie, Dave and myself also went over the entire presentation for the first time. It was good. I messed up a bit, but it helped me identify the things I need to work on.

Check out the pictures below.

Maggie did her thing and explained workplace hazards.


Dave covered the section on reporting workplace injuries.


I covered the three rights of workers, but there's no picture.

At the end of the day I got Maggie, Dave, and Kerilyn to pose for a picture of the SAFE Workers of Tomorrow cheer. Good job folks.

Alan Greyeyes

Howdy,

I am going to be doing presentations alongside Dave, Maggie, Keri, Ellen and the rest of the SAFE Workers of Tomorrow.

Check back for more SAFE Workers of Tomorrow posts.

Dave Sauer

Hello,

Dave Sauer here. One of the "New Guys" at Workers of Tomorrow. I hail from the Winnipeg Labour Movement. I've been involved for about 3 years now, starting out with the Industrial Workers of the World and continue to be active to this day. Shortly after that I was elected to the position of vice-chair for my union local's district, CAW local 2002 district 200 at Air Canada. I became a delegate to the Winnipeg Labour Council for my local in February of 2003 serving first as an alternate, and eventually full delegate.

In June 2003 I graduated from the Labour College of Canada in Ottawa. I decided then to pursue higher education in the labour movement and became enrolled at the University of Manitoba in the Labour and Workplace Studies program.

After being laid off from Air Canada in March of 2004, I became involved in election politics. I first served as an animator and organizer for the CLC's National "Better Choice" Labour Issues Campaign, and then moved on to become an infamous NDP "Pollcat." I've been with Workers of Tomorrow for a few weeks now and I'm very much up to the challenge. Apart from labour activities, I'm highly active in my church with youth and social justice ministry. I enjoy travelling the globe and learning about culture and language. See you in the classes!

Maggie Markewich

Maggie Markewich is 25 years old and recently finished the Civil/CAD Engineering Technology program at Red River College in Winnipeg, MB. She first became involved with SAFE Workers of Tomorrow in October of 2004 when she was able to attend the A.W.C.B.C. Public Forum in Montreal, QC. The forum discussed topics on working safe, prevention and shared personal stories of people who had been injured while working. Maggie hopes to use the valuable work experience that she has gained to help young people be more aware of how they can work safe and help others around them to work safe.

Maggie enjoys outdoor activities, spending time with her friends and loves music.

Welcome

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