Leaders of the pack The Guardian profiles powerful Island women who are at the head of P.E.I.’s largest provincial labour unions MARY MACKAY The Guardian

Donalda MacDonald’s three children, Ryan, 28, Patrick, 26 and Leanne, 21, were all under the age of 10 when she became interested in the labour movement. MacDonald, centre above, is now president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees P.E.I. (CUPE-P.E.I.). Guardian photo by Mary MacKay

Committed to labour
Donalda MacDonald is the one female in a score of male CUPE provincial division presidents who represents more a half-million Canadian workers. Her roots in the labour movement run deep. In the early 1980s she spearheaded a successful campaign to get full-time secretaries in the schools. “The first time that you can make a difference, when somebody calls you and says, ‘Thank you so much, Donalda, for doing that because it made a difference to me,’ then you get bit with the bug . . . ,” says MacDonald, who has been a secretary with the Eastern School District since 1979. She has been involved with CUPE for years, but she hesitated to run as CUPE-P.E.I. president because she didn’t think she was forceful enough. “But I’ve learned you don’t have to be forceful, you have to be committed. You have to really believe in what you’re saying and then that carries (you). You don’t have to yell and scream to get attention.” One unforgettable moment for MacDonald pertains to the yearlong strike of the “Fearless Five” group home workers in Kings County. In the midst of a Conservative leadership race in Toronto, Premier Pat Binns was being honoured in that city as the most popular premier in Canada. MacDonald, the Fearless Five and other CUPE members planned to picket at the event. “My (job) was to go to meet the premier and tell him this. I will never forget it. Premier Binns is very suave, very in control. He was not happy and I know my mouth dropped and I was thinking what in the hell am I doing here?” she says, laughing at the memory. All went well. The strike was settled shortly after. “I could tell him anything now and I wouldn’t be worried. I would never have to tell him anything worse than what I had to tell him then,” she jokes. This mother of three children, who are now grown, says women still face challenges in leadership roles that men don’t face, especially with family and home responsibilities. “Even today, more men are taking on more responsibility but it’s still the women’s main role: make sure the dinner’s cooked, the house is clean, the laundry’s done, the homework’s done, make sure the kids get to hockey. I was doing all of that and juggling this as well,” says MacDonald. “I once had a male leader at the national level say, ‘I go to the same meetings as you go to, I do all this the same and I get the same s**t thrown at me that you do.’ And I said, ‘Yeah, but the difference is I have to go home and wash that s**t off, you’ve got somebody at home washing it for you.’ ”

Fighting for rights
Mary MacNeil has been living the labour movement life for more than 30 years. She had her first picket line experience in the 1970s, fought for pay equity in the 1980s and has been regional representative for PSAC for more than a decade. But experiencing sexual harassment was the catalyst for her union interests. “At that time, they didn’t even call it sexual harassment. It wasn’t even coined until the late ’70s,” she says. “Way back, you put up with it. I’d go to my supervisor (who’d say), ‘It’s a compliment. They’re having a rough time at home.’ Everybody made excuses for it. That was the era. I just knew it wasn’t right, it wasn’t acceptable.” MacNeil and a number of other women filed a complaint with the Public Service Commission but were ostracized by co-workers and even union representatives. “I wasn’t the type to run for (anything), but their reaction was so unacceptable that I ended up running for local president,” MacNeil says. “And once you make one step, it’s like, if I’m not going to put up with it here, I can’t put up with it (somewhere else). I didn’t really want to run, it was just, ‘this isn’t the way it’s supposed to be.’ ” MacNeil won the election and has been involved with PSAC ever since. She has made major inroads on some hard-hitting issues, such as pay equity and maternity leave benefits. Still, there are challenging situations, such as being nose-to-nose with managers and police in strike situations. “My personality is I always stay calm. I’ve never lost it. I just don’t have that kind of a temper,” she says. “(Some people) look for the old type of union leader to go in. Some of them have an image of this strong burley guy. But I actually feel my personality is better because I stay calm and no matter if somebody is screaming at me, they’re usually calm at the end because I don’t get on the defensive . . . .” Over the years, MacNeil has been told she doesn’t fit the stereotypical male labour leader mold. “I still have to face a lot of guys that question whether it should be a woman in (this) job. But I’m still alive and well,” she says. “We (women) have made accomplishments but I don’t think it’s over for women. Like some of the younger women say, we can sit back. I don’t think it’s (ever over) for any group. But I do believe it’s a positive sign that there’s acceptance.”

One step at a time
Unfair employment practices were the norm for PEITF president Seana Evans-Renaud when she started her career in education in Ontario 23 years ago. She was teaching at a private school with no protection that a teachers’ federation could provide, therefore salary levels and other decisions were unilaterally made by the school’s headmistress. “It was common knowledge that the males on staff made more than the females because they were the ‘major breadwinners of the family and I was a single female and what would I need that money for?’ That sort of (attitude),” Evans-Renaud remembers. She discovered a whole new world when she moved to P.E.I. six years later and discovered the protections, services and professional development opportunities the PEITF provided. “I wanted to be a part of that and wanted to make a difference,” she says. Evans-Renaud was invited to chair the PEITF annual convention committee and things snowballed. She gradually rose through the ranks to her present president position. “For each step of that way, I never assumed a role with the PEITF until I was prepared for it. If someone had asked when I was chairperson of the convention committee, ‘Do you want to be president?’ I would have said, ‘Are you out of your mind?’ because that was so totally out of my realm of experience,’ “ she says. “But it was a natural progression.” Evans-Renaud admits it does take a certain personality to be a labour leader. “You can’t be thin-skinned by any means, you can’t be rattled and you can’t overreact to things. I think one of the things that I’ve learned over the years is no matter what happens, just take a breath and evaluate the situation and I think that’s come with age as well,” she says, chuckling. “(Before it was) probably somewhat of a reactionary (response). I would blurt something out, I’ve learned not to blurt.” She has definitely reached a point where she is fearless in speaking about the difficult issues. But she says a daily challenge is ensuring that she is informed of how the membership feels so she can accurately reflect the viewpoints. “When you’ve got 1,500 members, to say that I’m speaking on behalf of 1,500 people I have to be damn sure that that’s what I’m doing,” she says. The PEITF president position is just one term so Evans-Renaud will return to her job as principal of Souris regional high school in September 2007. “I have never thought of myself as having to fight to be in a position because I’m a woman. I have felt that I’ve wanted that position or fought for that because I’m the best candidate for the job.”