OPSEU President of Local 575, Chinese Workers Network
Kingsley Kwok is the president of Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) Local 575 representing over 1,000 allied health professionals at Scarborough Hospital Network and home support workers at Yee Hong Centre for Geriatric Care. As a Registered Respiratory Therapist in critical care and emergency departments at Scarborough General Hospital, Kingsley has been on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic since March 2020. He is also the Chair of the Scarborough Health Coalition, which is part of the Ontario Health Coalition, which actively advocates for public healthcare, and the Co-Chair of the Chinese Workers Network, actively promoting labour rights and advocacy for and on behalf of the Chinese-Canadian community.
As a frontline worker during the pandemic, Kingsley sees the effects of the COVID-19 crisis on people every single day with needless deaths, and real and visible impacts on workers. Kingsley juggles his union responsibilities as President along with working full-time and being a husband and father, because he feels that unions are often the only institutions that workers can rely on and trust for workplace justice.
Kingsley has put his name forward for the New Democratic Party in a few federal and provincial elections because he believes that the issues he sees people facing every day need to be stopped or alleviated, such as the terrible deaths in long-term care homes, workplace health and safety issues, the surge of Islamophobia in Canada, and the verbal abuses and threats that racial minorities endure, among other issues.
As the Co-Chair of the Chinese Workers Network, Kingsley is a big proponent of Chinese-Canadians getting involved in their unions, and the labour movement in general. He believes that unions are the only vehicle in which social change and social justice can truly take place.