A Milestone for the CUPW Child Care Fund - A cause for celebration!!!

CUPW is the only union in North America to have bargained a Fund to support its members with their child care needs. It all began in the early 1980s when women postal workers demanded that their Union do something about their need for child care. In response CUPW began to raise the issue with Canada Post and in 1991 bargained the CUPW Child Care Fund (Fund). Today the Fund supports eight child care projects in different regions of the country and our two largest projects: the Special Needs and Moving On, which supports postal workers who have young or adult children with disabilities. 

One of the very first projects of the Fund was the CUPW Resource Centre/Family and Child Care Connections (FCCC) located in St. John’s, Newfoundland. It was established when CUPW was trying to meet the child care needs of members in a province where there was little in the way of child care services, and no licensed/regulated home child care.

Working with the local child care community and the provincial government, a set of guidelines was developed to ensure that home child care providers attached to the FCCC would promote the health, safety and the well-being of children. CUPW not only found a way to support its members to have access to good quality licensed home child care, it set a precedent – making FCCC the first licensed and government-funded home child care agency in that province.

And if that was not enough, in 2022, as part of the Federal/Provincial Bilateral Child Care Agreements, the government selected Family and Child Care Connections to become the province-wide licensed home child care agency. Over the coming years FCCC will expand its services right across Newfoundland and Labrador – giving growing numbers of postal workers and other families access to good quality licensed home child care.

Back in 1996 CUPW was breaking ground for its members in St. John’s – and it continues to this day to break ground for postal workers and the public right across Newfoundland and Labrador!

CUPW members have much to be proud of!