kimsiever

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Fort McMurray library workers get 4.75% raise

Earlier this month, the Mediation Services department of Alberta Jobs, Economy, and Trade published the July 2025 Bargaining Update. This monthly report provides information about the unionized workforce, primarily in Alberta. In July, Mediation Services received settlement information regarding 19 private sector and 15 public sector bargaining settlements, covering 2,179 and 4,684 workers…

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ALRB certified 9 more unionized workplaces

The Alberta Labour Relations Board publishes a list of all the certificates they’ve issued for unionized workplaces in the province. They update it every month, with the latest update being 1 August 2025. I thought I would report on 12 certificates that the ALRB awarded in July 2025. I know that the headline says 9, but some of the certificates are for the same employer. Taproot Community…

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S4 E7 - Where worker wages actually come from

You’ve probably heard that business owners provide their workers with a job and a salary. In episode 7 of season 4 of the Alberta Worker Podcast, independent labour journalist Kim Siever explains why that framing of our current economic system is misleading. Follow The Alberta Worker: Facebook: facebook.com/albertaworkerTwitter: twitter.com/ABWorkerLinkedIn:…

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Portage College faculty get 12% raise in new contract

Earlier this month, the Mediation Services department of Alberta Jobs, Economy, and Trade published the July 2025 Bargaining Update. This monthly report provides information about the unionized workforce, primarily in Alberta. In July, Mediation Services received settlement information regarding 19 private sector and 15 public sector bargaining settlements, covering 2,179 and 4,684 workers…

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Edmonton ironworkers file for unionization

Earlier this week, the Alberta Labour Relations Board published their latest new applications report. In it was an application for union certification. Local 720 of the International Association of Bridge, Structural, Ornamental and Reinforcing Iron Workers—otherwise known as the Ironworkers—filed the application on 15 August 2025 on behalf of workers employed with GNE Construction Ltd. Based…

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Alberta’s youth jobless rate passes 20%

Earlier this month, Statistics Canada released their results of the July 2024 Labour Market Survey. Shortly after that, Conservative federal politicians started tweeting about Canada’s youth unemployment rate. Here is Brad Vis, MP for Mission—Matsqui—Abbotsford. Young Canadians are being crushed by Carney’s failure to get our economy moving again. The July Labour Force Survey found that the…

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Picked this up when I was in Calgary yesterday.

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Friendly bosses still lay off workers

The longest I have ever held onto a job was 9 years. I worked at that place from 2001 to 2010. I started there as a practicum student. What they had been doing was hiring a practicum student for a semester, then keep them on for an extra month to help train the next practicum student. But they stopped doing that after they hired me. They decided to keep me on full-time instead. I had two…

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Worker support workers get 3% raise in new contract

Last week, the Mediation Services department of Alberta Jobs, Economy, and Trade published the July 2025 Bargaining Update. This monthly report provides information about the unionized workforce, primarily in Alberta. In July, Mediation Services received settlement information regarding 19 private sector and 15 public sector bargaining settlements, covering 2,179 and 4,684 workers…

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I was reminded today why I cannot work a full-time job where I have to be on my feet for the entire shift or drive for the entire shift.

[kimsiever]

Our Story from Gaza: Before and After 💔

Before the war, I lived with my parents, my brother, and my sister in the Shuja'iyya neighborhood of Gaza City. Our life was simple. We didn’t have much, but we had enough. Our home wasn’t big, but it was where we felt safe.

Every morning, my brother and sister went to school, and I went about my own daily routine. In the evenings, we would all sit together in the living room, talk about our day, and sometimes watch TV when the electricity was on. On weekends, we visited relatives, or just stayed home sharing food and conversations.

It wasn’t a perfect life, but it was normal. We had our small joys family meals, birthdays, laughter, even the quiet moments when nothing special was happening. That life, as simple as it was, meant everything to us.

Our home between before and after 🥺💔

The Day Everything Changed

When the bombing started, our lives turned upside down overnight. During the first week of the war, we had to run from our home in Shuja'iyya. We left in a hurry, carrying almost nothing with us. At that moment, I didn’t realize it would be the last time I’d see our house the way it was.

We moved to the Rimal neighborhood, thinking maybe it would be safer there. But it was there that we received the news that broke us completely: our home the place that held all our memories, our laughter, our life had been destroyed. Flattened to the ground.

Everything we had worked for, every piece of furniture, every photo, every little thing that made up our life, was gone in a moment. It wasn’t just walls and a roof it was the only place we felt safe, and now it was nothing but rubble💔💔💔

The Ongoing Struggle

Since that day, we’ve been on the move, never staying in one place for long. From Rimal to Al-Zawada, then to Rafah we’ve been displaced four times already. And with every move, we carry less with us, because there’s almost nothing left to carry.

Most nights we sleep on the floor, and sometimes in tents. The nights are freezing cold, and the days are unbearably hot. There’s no electricity, no clean water, no proper toilets. Even getting food has become a battle sometimes we wait for hours just to get a piece of bread to share.

We lost everything our jobs, our home, our income, and with it, a part of our dignity. What hurts the most is the constant fear. Every sound makes us wonder if it’s the next bomb, the next loss, the next goodbye.

We used to have dreams about the future. Now, all we dream about is making it to tomorrow alive 😪💔

As of today, April 15, 2025, the latest satellite images of our home show that it has been completely destroyed

Why We Are Asking for Help

We are the Anas family like many families in Gaza ordinary people who only wanted peace, a safe home, and a chance to live in dignity. But the war has taken everything from us: our home, our land, our jobs, our dreams, our stability… even our sleep.

It's hard to write this. It's hard to ask for help. But we are desperate.

How You Can Help

Please, if you are reading this, help us. Even a small donation could mean we can sleep under a real roof again, buy medicine, food, or clean water. It could help us bring back a little dignity to our lives.

We started a campaign to help us rebuild what the war destroyed. Every dollar makes a big difference.

* Our Goal: $40,000 USD

* Amount Raised So Far: [$22,236 USD]

We have collected $22,236 raised of $40,000 !🇵🇸

Update

I want to let you all know that my GoFundMe campaign has been closed by the platform. They decided to refund all donations back to the donors because of their strict policies.

But I cannot give up — my family still urgently needs support.

So, I have now moved the campaign to Chuffed, a trusted fundraising platform:

Please, if you can, donate again through this new link or share it with others. Every bit of help means so much to me and my family. 💔🙏

You can donate through the official link:

Even $20 will make a big difference and save us!

If you cannot donate, please share this story. You might reach someone who can.

This isn’t just a story. This is our life. And we're still living through it.

Thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

IMPORTANT: This campaign is real and verified. You can see all updates and amounts raised directly on the link.

You can check here so you can donate with confidence👉verified ✅

If you came from the tags , I want to reassure you, don’t worry, because @gaza-evacuation-funds helps me to make the post reach the largest number of people

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This is why I am open at church.

I want other queer Mormons, especially young queer Mormons, that they are not the only ones.

I feel like I see a lot of people come into your ask box with questions that aren't always in good faith, or demands that you continuously justify your identity and continued affiliation with the church to them. Figured I could help balance out some of the vibes.

I'm no longer active in the church, but I was raised in it, and I see being Mormon as just as much as part of who I am as the fact that I am gay and trans. I can only speculate how different my life would have been if I knew more people like you growing up in the church. You have a real impact on people's lives for the better. Thank you for the work you do for our siblings, because trying to be LGBTQ+ and Mormon IS work, just by virtue of trying to make these things coexist despite the friction they can cause with each other (almost entirely because of other people, and not because they're incompatible).

I don't speak much in the Tumblrstake circle, but I hang out on the fringes and I listen, because it helps me feel connected to a part of my identity that does not welcome me the way I wish it did. You help me feel connected to that part of me, and I carry a prayer in my heart for you and for everyone who does what you do. Thank you.

💗

Thank you for such a kind note.

I understand that people have big feelings about how they were treated by the LDS Church. They find my blog and they unload. I am not the real target but I'm here and easy to contact.

I get that people are curious of why would someone who is gay would choose to be a Mormon, and they ask me to explain how this works or why I stay, and thus I answer some form of the question over and over.

Sometimes I choose to respond to asks that weren't asked in good faith because I will use it to give an answer that I want to share.

I respond to all asks that seems genuine and asked in good faith unless they're asking me to share some personal information that I don't want to put out there. I get to keep some things private.

There are many asks which I delete because they're too mean, too much, too angry, too whatever. I'm not required to respond to every ask.

I put up with all those asks because of the many, many wonderful and heartfelt messages I receive. I like that queer people who don't have a parent or church leader they feel comfortable asking questions feel the can ask me, especially those about being queer intersects with religion.

I have 3 main things I try to do with this blog.

I imagine that one day anthropologists and historians will be looking at this time in the church's history and wanting to understand what it was like to be a queer person. I want to be one more voice out there of an authentic queer LDS experience.

I've never been good at keeping a diary, so I've used this to record some things I want to remember that specifically are connected to me being queer & LDS.

I want to affirm queer people (myself included) by sharing that they are known & loved by God.

Related to affirming queer LDS people, I want there to be so many rainbows and other imagery among my posts it is obvious this is a queer person's blog, someone who isn't hiding or ashamed that they're queer

It's always a wonderful surprise when someone tells me they know me from my blog, or they appreciated the thoughtful answer I gave to an ask they sent me, or they share that finding another queer person out there who is LDS made them feel less alone and gave them hope.

Being queer and Mormon shouldn't be a conflict, but it is and I fear it will take a long while before this gets resolved.

I thank you for sending this message, it gives me peace.

[kimsiever]

Bonus: Defying Orders—Air Canada Workers on Strike

Over 10,000 CUPE unionized Air Canada workers defied the orders of the nation’s labour board, stayed off the job and secured a tentative agreement. Kim Siever, labour journalist for the The Alberta Worker, joins Blueprints of Disruption host Jessa McLean to talk about what led up to the strike, the Liberals’ liberal use of back-to-work legislation, and what this means for Canadian…

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Edm. care workers want $20.85 minimum wage

Last week, the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees published two updates (here and here) on their website regarding contract negotiations for Edmonton continuing care workers. These workers are employed at two retirement facilities. The first is Our Parents’ Home, a high-rise retirement facility near downtown Edmonton. It has 84 independent living suites, 17 supportive living suites, and 33…

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Construction workers may switch unions

Earlier this week, the Alberta Labour Relations Board published their latest new applications report for August 2025. In it was an application for union certification. Local 2103 of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, otherwise known as IUOE, filed the application on 8 August 2025 in behalf of workers employed by Aecon Civil Construction Corp. Actually, it was 6…

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S4 E6 - Why labour is more important than capital

Have you ever heard a politician refer to company owners as job creators? First of all, it’s a myth. But politicians use this rhetoric to frame the owning class as the ones who drive the economy. They say that if they give them tax cuts, they’ll have more money, which they’ll spend on hiring more people. And so the public starts to believe that because the owning class owns the capital, it must…

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HSAA workers to vote on tentative agreement

Earlier this week, the Health Sciences Association of Alberta published an update regarding contract negotiations with Alberta Health Services. HSAA represents nearly 30,000 paramedical technical, professional, and general support workers across Alberta, the bulk of which are employed by AHS. The last contract for the AHS workers who are members of HSAA expired in March 2024, nearly a year and…