In September 1992, our union sent out a notice to all locals inviting members to attend OUTRights -- a conference on gays and lesbians and the law. Many notices didn't make it to the union bulletin boards, and some that did were defaced. Despite all this, several courageous members expressed their interest and came forward. The Hospital Employees' Union was the first union to sponsor participants to this conference. This event marked the beginning of gay and lesbian visibility within HEU.

In October 1992, at HEU's eighteenth biennial convention an announcement was made on the convention floor calling all lesbians and gays to meet in a caucus to provide support and to address oppression. This was met with various forms of audible discomfort including laughter and sarcasm. Despite this outcome, lesbian and gay members met and formed a caucus. The following day, a resolution was inroduced to combat homophobia and other discrimination in the workplace and was passed unanimously . In our effort to eliminate homophobia, the Provincial Executive funded a Lesbian and Gay Focus Group at the 1993 summer school.

The following year, at our 19th convention, a resolution was passed to establish four equity caucuses:

• Lesbians and Gay Men
• First Nations
• Ethnic Diversity
• People with Dis-Abilities

At our twentieth convention in 1996, a constitutional amendment was passed to establish four equity standing committees. In this amendment, each standing committee is entitled to send resolutions and one delegate to the Wage Policy conference and convention. Each Committee also has a representative on the Equal Opportunities Committee, a subcommittee of the Provincial Executive, with voice and vote. In March, 1997 a permanent, full-time, Equity Officer was hired.

As a Standing Committee, we believe in the positive education of our HEU sisters and brothers by telling our own stories. To date, standing committee members, at the request of locals, have provided presentations in all regions. We have also participated in introductory and advanced shop steward courses, as well as workshops to HEU staff, representatives, and the Provincial Executive. We also publish a quarterly newsmagazine "PridePages", and it is available to any HEU members or interested parties. We are committed to carry out these and other education initiatives in the coming years.

Since 1995, HEU has held Equity Conferences, at these conferences members from all regions of HEU come together to discuss goals and objectives until the next conference. We talk about our employers, our regions, locals, our union and other unions, our community, our selves, and our future.

At the conference a steering committee is elected to represent and meet until the next conference to fulfil the goals and objectives mandated to them by the conference. The steering committee structure tries to represent all regions within HEU with representatives. We also have a representative attend Equal Opportunities Committee meetings which is made up all four standing committee representatives and our elected Provincial Elective members. When this committee meets we update each other on what were doing and share ideas on what we can do together for the entire membership.

We also have a representatives on the Canadian Union of Public Employees' National Pink Triangle Committee which has representatives from all across Canada Participate on it. Our representative provides a report on what were doing in HEU . We also help work on national campaigns sharing ideas, train facilitators to provide educational workshops at all levels in CUPE, on how to build on our victories.

At the Canadian Labour Congress we also have a representative from the committee as does CUPE and many other National Unions from across Canada. Our representative on the Lesbian and Gay Working Group provides a report of what we are doing in HEU. To date this committee has been responsible for planning National Pride and Solidarity Conferences with hundreds of participants from all across the country. They have worked on National Campaigns including Queer as a Three Dollar Bill. This campaign depicted trade union activist on a poster that first described them as family members, parents, grand parents, their hobbies, were they lived and their jobs as community activists. Each person represented in his poster was also a very committed trade union activists, either a shop steward, on their executive, or participated at a provincial or national level, some are staff representatives.