OCC History

The History of OCC
Who - What- Where - When- Why

Operation Christmas Cheer was created back in December of 2004. The
president of CEP 102-0 Pembroke, made a heartfelt plea to the ODLC
asking for support for her 15 members who were walking the picket lines
at Christmas.

Members of my union local felt compelled to get involved and started
collecting cans and packages of food so we could deliver Christmas
Hampers to these families in time for Christmas dinner. Even though
were able to get our company (AIL Canada) to donate the 15 turkeys
something was still missing. What we didn’t have was toys for the
children so we asked for help from you, our Brothers and Sisters.

The response from labour was overwhelming and through word of mouth,
we collectively raised over $2,900 a couple weeks before Christmas.
OCC was able to ensure that every child received a gift Christmas
morning plus, we were able to deliver $100 grocery gift cards to Brothers
and Sisters of CEP 324 Dryden who had been out on the picket line for
close to a year!

I thought that Operation Christmas Cheer was a one time event but I was
wrong. November 2005, 3 United Steelworkers locals were on strike in
small community of Hawkesbury. Over 400 Brothers and Sisters had been
fighting for their rights since July and they were all struggling to survive
during the Holiday season.

Operation Christmas Cheer started up again even though we were unsure
we would be able to collect enough food and raise enough money to help
every member. We decided to do what we could to make a difference
so we pledged our support to USW 8580 and their 80 members walking the
picket lines.

Long Story short, you helped to raise $17,200 in less than 5 weeks!
Operation Christmas Cheer not only made a difference for all members of
USW 8580 but also for 15 members of CEP 31X in Espanola on strike who
had been walking the picket line since September. All remaining
pledges/contributions collected were used to purchase grocery gift cards
for United Steelworkers 7940 & 8794 in Hawkesbury who had a prioritized
list of union families most in need.

Operation

Christmas Cheer