Winnipeg’s Red River College Polytechnic to grant staff bereavement leave for non-blood relations

By Maggie Macintosh, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Winnipeg Free Press Red River College Polytechnic employees can now take paid time off to mourn a non-blood relative who is akin to family to them. Union and post-secondary leaders celebrated that change, among others that came out of their new, reconciliation-forward approach to contract talks, on Monday. “There’s a Western view that your family is who you’re related to by blood and that’s all — and that’s not how it works, at least not in my community,” said Monica Lytwyn, co-chair of RRC Polytech’s truth and reconciliation working group. “Your relatives aren’t always blood relatives and sometimes, your cousin is raised as a sibling or someone who lives next door to you might become like a sibling.” Lytwyn, a member of Norway…

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