Mobilizing youth, welcoming immigrants are priorities, says new CUPE NB president [video]

CUPE New Brunswick’s newly elected president says her priorities include mobilizing young workers, welcoming new immigrant members, and standing up for workers’ interests amid instability driven by U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war.

Iris Lloyd outlined her vision in a wide-ranging interview with NB Media Co-op on Thursday, International Workers’ Day.

 She said it’s important to build a fighting spirit among young workers in an era marked by Trump’s far-right government, his global trade war and threats of annexation.

“I’m going to be educating [young workers] on how to fight back against these right-wing governments so that workers’ voices are heard at all tables across the country,” she said.

CUPE NB also wants to create a welcoming environment for new immigrants workers, she said.

“We want to be able to make it as comfortable that we can to have them come in, come into their union meetings and feel that their voices are being heard and recognized,” she said.

Lloyd has worked as a school custodian in the Anglophone South School District since 2007, and served as president of CUPE 1253 for the past six years, representing some 2,500 unionized school district workers.

She was elected as president of CUPE NB last month at its 62nd annual convention in Fredericton, succeeding Steve Drost, who decided not to reoffer after completing two consecutive two-year terms.

Lloyd described her journey from the rank-and-file to union leadership, saying she grew up in a poor area of working-class Saint John and started working at age 14 at the South End Community Centre.

“From there, when I was in high school at Saint John High, my guidance counsellor told me… ‘you come from a poor neighborhood, your family isn’t going to be able to afford to send you to university,'” she recalled.

“I had to really reconsider my life at that age and what I was going to do. And I knew something that I felt in my heart was about protecting the public and working with the public.”

When she started working at her former high school as a custodian in 2007, she got involved immediately. “There was a union meeting that night,” she said.

She went on to sit on the Saint John District Labour Council, where she eventually became the first woman to serve as the council’s president.

Completing an intensive 15-month course with the Labour College of Canada “really pushed me” to deepen her involvement with the labour movement, she said.

As president of CUPE 1253, she was part of the public sector union’s centralized bargaining team during the historic 2021 CUPE strike in New Brunswick.

That 16-day strike produced “the best wage increases my membership has seen in many, many years,” an increase of about $3 per hour for custodians and bus drivers, she said.

The government of then-premier Blaine Higgs later forced thousand of unionized workers — including members of CUPE 1253 — into so-called shared risk pensions, a move condemned by labour leaders and opposition MLAs as an attack on free collective bargaining rights.

The new government of Premier Susan Holt moved to repeal that legislation in March, ending a two-year fight as unions challenged the law in court. Lloyd thanked the new government for the change of direction.

“It was more than just the pensions for CUPE members,” she said. “It was really our right to be able to bargain fairly.”

Asked about the results of this week’s federal election, she expressed gratitude to the NDP’s Jagmeet Singh for legislative victories that included an expansion of public pharmacare and dental care.

Singh announced his resignation as NDP Leader after support for the party collapsed across the country and he lost his seat in Burnaby South. “It’s a real shame that we are losing Jagmeet’s voice in government,” she said.

Lloyd takes on the role of CUPE NB president at a time when school district workers are facing layoffs due to provincial budget cuts. She said it remains unclear how many of members will be affected.

“Not all seven school districts have come forward with whatever cuts it is that they have to make with their budgets,” she said. “But as we know right now, it’s about 35 library workers in Anglophone West that are potentially affected by these cuts.”

In a statement following her election, she pledged to defend frontline workers, notably against privatization of public services.

“In the face of crises like the U.S. trade war and its impact on New Brunswick, CUPE NB won’t sit on the sidelines – we’ll work with the government when it serves the people, but we’ll never back down from putting workers first,” she said.

“We will be relentless in pushing back against privatization, strengthening and improving our public services, and building a just, sustainable New Brunswick that works for everyone – not just the wealthy few.”

This article was updated to include video on May 2, 2025 at 6:20 p.m.

David Gordon Koch is a staff reporter with the NB Media Co-op. Matthew Wright is a volunteer with the NB Media Co-op. This reporting has been made possible in part by the Government of Canada, administered by the Canadian Association of Community Television Users and Stations (CACTUS).