Greg Snider – Winner of the 2024 Carol McGregor CLC Disability Rights Award
Every year on December 3, the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, the Canadian Labour Congress will recognize a union member for their disability rights activism.
This award is named in honour of Carol McGregor, an outstanding disability rights activist, member of NUPGE and the CLC Disability Rights Working Group―and who was much loved by all those who worked with her. Carol passed away in 2006.
In 2024, the award recognizes the National Union of Public and General Employees and Ontario Public Service Employees Union activist Greg Snider.
Greg is an inspiring leader in our labour movement who has spent his life tirelessly advocating for the rights of workers with disabilities in Ontario and across Canada. Greg’s advocacy efforts have spanned many workplaces and communities, including his work at the Ontario Disability Support Program of the Ministry of Community and Social Services as an intake specialist, to his work with Community Living Thunder Bay supporting persons with developmental disabilities in group homes for over a decade.
Greg was also an OPSEU member for his entire working life. As a dedicated trade unionist, Greg was president of his local 714 for over 10 years. As a union leader, he was passionate about ensuring OPSEU and OFL conventions were accessible and inclusive spaces for workers with disabilities. He was also involved in several regional initiatives that propelled the rights of workers with disabilities to the top of the union’s agenda, including his efforts alongside the late Carol McGregor to co-found and then co-chair the first ever Disability Caucus at OPSEU.
As a lifetime champion for disability rights and inclusion of people with disabilities in his union and across many workplaces and communities, Greg perfectly embodies the spirit of this award.
Congratulations to Greg and thank you for your leadership and activism for disability rights and inclusion.