Former CUPE Manitoba president on ballot for union election

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 13/12/2024 (638 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Former CUPE Manitoba president Abe Araya, who faced a charge of sexual assault in 2021 that was dropped a year later, is on the ballot for the Local 110 election in late January.

Araya resigned after he was charged with sexual assault in relation to an alleged incident in Brandon in 2019. The charge against him was stayed just before the trial was to start.

Rick Peschel, the president of Local 110 since 2020, confirmed Araya is running against him. Araya held the position before being elected as president of CUPE Manitoba in 2019.

“Anyone is free to run in these elections,” Peschel said.

All current members of the executive board are running for re-election.

The local, which represents 400 custodians, cleaners, painters, utility and mechanical workers in the Winnipeg School Division, has been facing internal turmoil for several months. CUPE had to cancel its in-person nomination meeting in September owing to “safety issues,” Peschel said.

Several complaints from members about harassment from fellow workers prompted the switch.

“What we wanted to do is make sure we have a safe and inclusive meeting for everybody and until I can put something into place we decided to go virtual,” he said. “We thought it would be the safest way to go for now, until these issues can be addressed.”

Peschel wouldn’t disclose who the complaints were made against or when they were made. The president said the complaints were forwarded to CUPE’s national office and investigations are underway.

CUPE national declined to comment.

The virtual nomination meeting took place on Nov. 24 and the election, which Peschel aims to have in-person, is scheduled for the end of January.

As soon as the criminal charge became known to the union in 2021, the national president asked Araya to step down, CUPE said at the time.

After his arrest and resignation, the executive board was dissolved in the wake of a police investigation.

At the time, Brandon Police Service spokeswoman Sgt. Kirby Sararas said the department opened an investigation in March 2020 after receiving a complaint of an incident alleged to have occurred in the city in February 2019.

Araya and the complainant who were in Brandon for work purposes, stayed at a local hotel, Sararas said, adding the two were known to one another.

At trial Araya agreed to a one-year peace bond not to contact or communicate with the complainant.

Araya did not respond to requests for comment about his run for election.

The Winnipeg School Division did not respond to requests for comment about Araya’s employment with the division.

Peschel took no issue with Araya running for the role, saying the union just got the “best contract in Manitoba” for a school sector collective.

In July, the union ratified a new agreement that included 8.9 per cent in raises over three years, plus a 50 cent per hour, per year raise over three years.

nicole.buffie@freepress.mb.ca