Faculty: Warren (Smokey) Thomas

Warren (Smokey) Thomas

Warren (Smokey) Thomas is President of the Ontario Public Services Employees Union. Before being elected to full-time office at the union, he was a registered practical nurse at Kingston Psychiatric Hospital for more than 30 years.

Smokey first joined OPSEU in 1984 as a union steward and was elected to the Executive Board in 1993. He has been a Regional Vice President and was elected to First Vice President Treasurer in 2001. As a senior manager in OPSEU, he has served on several bargaining teams representing management in negotiations with two internal staff unions.

Smokey has long had a deep interest in the potential of economic development. In the mid- to late 1990's he was co-founder and co-chair of Advantage Kingston, a community-based initiative aimed at easing Kingston 's transition to an information-based economy. And he planned and chaired the two-day Innovative Healthy Sustainable Communities conference at Queen's that brought together a diverse group of business, government, academic, and community leaders to discuss how environment, social issues, and economic factors affect economic development.

He is a speaker in Queen's IRC's Industrial Relations program.