KEN ROBINSON - PRESIDENT
Local: Kelowna General (Kelowna General Hospital)
Job: Diet technician/food services supervisor
Now serving his second term as HEU president, Ken has also served four other terms on the P.E., including 1st and 3rd vice-president. An activist for 22 years, Ken has held every position on his local executive.
Ken was inspired to become a union activist early on. “Having come from the non-union hospitality industry, I instantly figured out that the better benefits, wages and working conditions were because I was now in a union job. I thought I should learn more about the union and get involved.”
BONNIE PEARSON - SECRETARY-BUSINESS MANAGER
Bonnie Pearson has extensive involvement in collective bargaining in both the private and public sector. Since joining HEU in 2006 she has been the Coordinator of Servicing and Assistant Secretary-Business Manager before being appointed Secretary-Business Manager in September 2011. She has been involved in the 2006 public sector bargaining for the Facilities Bargaining Association, in the Bill 29 Settlement negotiations in 2007/2008 and in the 2010 FBA negotiations.
Pearson served as a vice-president of the Saskatchewan Federation of Labour and was also a member of the Saskatchewan Public Service Commission for two years. She worked at HEU before moving to the College-Institute Educators’ Association (now the Federation of Post-Secondary Educators). And from 2001 to 2006, Pearson worked for the Compensation Employees’ Union, representing staff at the Workers’ Compensation Board.
DONISA BERNARDO - FINANCIAL SECRETARY
Local: Kamloops Thompson (Royal Inland Hospital)
Job: Pharmacy technician
Donisa has been an activist for 22 years. She has served on the P.E. since 1998 and is in her third term as the union’s financial secretary.
“I’ve always been an activist. But my union activism began in 1989 when all the pharmacy techs at Royal Inland received a letter saying our jobs were redundant and our positions were about to be downgraded. We went to the union and developed strategies that could save our jobs at the higher pay rate. We were successful. After that I signed up as a shop steward. Within six months, I was chief shop steward and eventually I became chairperson of my local.”