Caroline Brisebois, Local 1000A

Loblaws
Ottawa, Ontario

Don’t let the quiet ways and even keel fool you. This woman doesn’t accept the status quo. She voices her approval when she likes the way things are and springs into action when she doesn’t. She gets things done. And usually with a disarming smile.

Caroline Brisebois is a steward and assistant customer service manager in a Loblaws store in Ottawa’s Vanier neighborhood. It’s a challenge to be both a union  steward and a manager, but there are a couple of things she does to make it work.

First, she never does the work of a steward for members who work in the department she helps to manage. “That would be a conflict,” she says.

Second, whether dealing with the store’s front-end staff, the union members she represents, or management, she follows the golden rule. “I treat people the way I want to be treated,” says Brisebois.

Shirley Heise is the UFCW Local 1000A staff representative for that store, and held office in the union’s Ottawa Division as Brisebois was becoming known as an activist..

“Caroline is someone who will dig to get to the bottom of things and she’ll go the extra mile to do it,” says Heise, who has mentored Brisebois for about 20 years.
“I haven’t been able to give her a project that she wasn’t able to figure out or dig her heels in to get it done.”

The two were similar in their early days as union activists, wanting change to come quickly. And they’re similar now, approaching challenge with a quiet, patient determination.

“She certainly has become very seasoned in her approach,” Heise says of Brisebois, “and tempered, not expecting it to happen at the snap of a finger, and working through the problems and solutions.”

Brisebois has a lot on her plate – so much so that she didn’t even get a Christmas tree up in her home one year. December is a hectic time for the Ottawa Division, so every time she and her husband were set to go cut down their tree, something else came up.  “I went out and bought one after Christmas so it wouldn’t happen the  next year,” she says, explaining that she plans to keep up her commitment to a toy drive for children in shelters along with other help for adults in shelters.

“I want the Ottawa Division to be known as the division that cares about people,” she says. “I want it to be the one that gets out and does things and gets the name out in the community.”

She’s the one who organizes the people. But members and stewards – men and women alike – win her praise for their zeal and participation in union efforts to help others.

In addition to the work for shelters, (the shelter work is done under WIN) the Ottawa Division, under Brisebois’ leadership raises money for the Leukemia Research Fund of Canada, the UFCW’s official charity.

Brisebois is president of the Ottawa Division, a member of the union’s Community Action Network (CAN) and chair of the Women’s Issues Network (WIN) Region 1 for Ottawa and Eastern Ontario.

She works full-time and is a mom to two daughters and grandma to two grandsons. She likes reading, photography, spending time at the family cottage, walking, and workouts at the gym.