TORONTO - United Steelworkers' (USW) Canadian National Director Ken Neumann today announced the Steelworkers Humanity Fund is contributing $145,000 to food banks in Canadian communities where USW members live and work.

"The Steelworkers Humanity Fund increased contributions to food banks by 50% this year to help address the impact of the global economic crisis on families and communities," said Neumann, the Humanity Fund's president.

"We hope the contributions of USW members will help alleviate the hardship faced by thousands of poor and vulnerable Canadians. At the same time, there is a sense of frustration that food banks are necessary at all in a country as wealthy as Canada," he said.

"The recent Campaign 2000 report card on Canadian child poverty shows just how far short we have come of the goal set in 1989 of eliminating child poverty by the year 2000," Neumann noted. "It's 20 years after the promise, and one in 10 children still lives in poverty.

"The USW again calls on governments at all levels to make poverty reduction an urgent and ongoing priority. Legitimate proposals exist to seriously address poverty issues in Canada, including child poverty and poverty endemic among First Nations and recent immigrants and refugees. A national poverty-reduction program that includes a good-jobs strategy is urgently required."

The Steelworkers Humanity Fund is a registered charitable organization founded in 1985 to address issues of hunger and poverty, primarily in the developing world. Steelworkers members contribute to the Fund through clauses negotiated into collective agreements.