Confederation of Canadian Unions : The Council of Canadian Unions (CCU) was established in 1969 as an independent Canadian union central. The name was changed to the Confederation of Canadian Unions in 1973.
The formation of an independent Canadian union central was one of the matters considered at a labour conference held in 1953 in Hamilton, Ontario. The delegates at the Hamilton Conference included representatives of left-wing unions expelled by the major Canadian labour congresses in the late 1940s, such as the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers (UE), the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers (Mine-Mill), and the Fur and Leather Workers. R. Kent Rowley and Madeleine Parent (Quebec organizers recently fired by the international United Textile Workers of America) also attended as representatives of the newly formed Canadian Textile Council (CTC). Although the formation of a new central was one of the options discussed, the Hamilton Conference concluded that labour unity should prevail; the expelled unions should seek re-affiliation with the existing centrals, rather than create a rival central.
The unions that participated in the Hamilton conference continued without affiliation to a labour central into the 1960s. In 1967, the CTC invited Mine-Mill delegates to its convention as observers. More formal meetings aimed at the formation of a new national labour central were organized in 1968 by R. Kent Rowley of the CTC. A July 1968 conference in Sudbury, Ontario, appointed an interim executive for a new Council of Canadian Unions (CCU); this executive was charged with drafting a constitution for the new labour central. The founding convention was held in July 1969, hosted by the Mine-Mill union in Sudbury. In addition to Mine-Mill and the Canadian Textile and Chemical Union (CTCU; formerly called the Canadian Textile Council), other early affiliates consisted of unions that had broken away from US internationals in the 1960s, such as the Pulp and Paper Workers of Canada (PPWC), the Canadian Association of Industrial, Mechanical and Allied Workers (CAIMAW), the Bricklayers, Masons Independent Union of Canada, the Canadian Union of Operating Engineers, and the Canadian Electrical Workers Union. Two other unions expelled by the major congresses, the UE and the United Fishermen and Allied Workers, were invited to the preliminary meetings, but they declined to attend.
Established as an alternative to the Canadian Labour Congress, which at the time was dominated by US-based international unions, the CCU has provided its affiliates with an avenue for concerted action and mutual support on organizational, negotiating, educational, legislative, and other issues. The CCU has emphasized democratic procedure and rank-and-file control (including for a time referendum votes for the executive), and has eschewed the values and practices of American business unionism. With an early membership in the range of 20,000, the CCU grew to a peak of about 40,000 members in the 1980s both through new affiliations and through new organization. A major expansion occurred during 1972-1973 when workers at the ALCAN aluminum smelter at Kitimat, British Columbia, broke away from the United Steelworkers of America and formed a new CCU affiliate, the Canadian Association of Smelter and Allied Workers (CASAW). CCU affiliates have been involved in a number of significant industrial disputes that have attracted broader attention and support. The Texpack strike of 1971 in Brantford, Ontario, was fought over the issue of the loss of Canadian jobs and deteriorating working conditions following a takeover by a US multinational. A 1973 strike at Artistic Woodwork in Toronto, Ontario, was over the right of immigrant workers to organize. In 1976, CASAW members in Kitimat went on an illegal strike over the implementation of federal wage controls. The Puretex strike in Toronto, 1978-1979, was over the issue of electronic video surveillance in the workplace. CASAW members in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, were involved in one of the longest and most controversial disputes of the 1990s, the lockout of workers at the Giant Mine operated by Royal Oak Mines. In addition to appealing for Canadian independence and the need for social (versus business) unionism, the CCU has also argued that Canadian members of international unions have sent more dollars in union dues south to the USA than the US unions have actually spent in Canada; the CCU has used statistics gathered under the Corporations and Labour Unions Returns Act to support these claims. In 1973, the CCU changed its name to the Confederation of Canadian Unions.
While the national presidency of the CCU has changed frequently, the federation has had considerable administrative continuity through its secretary-treasurer (which became a salaried position in 1974). Kent Rowley was secretary-treasurer until his death in 1978; he was followed by John B. Lang, 1978-1993, and by Karen Cooling, 1993-2000. The CCU's national office was located in Toronto until 1993, when it moved to Nanaimo, British Columbia. The CCU has been national in scope, with sufficient members to form enduring regional councils in BC and Ontario. Regional councils also existed for a time in Quebec and the Atlantic provinces, and area conferences were sometimes held for regions with no organized council. The CCU has had its greatest impact in BC, where it has been a significant force because of relatively large affiliates such as the PPWC, CAIMAW, CASAW, and the Independent Canadian Transit Union.
The CCU entered a major decline in the 1990s, as several affiliates left to merge with other unions (CAIMAW, CASAW, the CTCU, and Mine-Mill all joined the Canadian Auto Workers). Discussions on re-structuring the CCU, possibly as "one big union", did not reverse this decline. With membership in the range of 7,000, the CCU closed its national office in Nanaimo in 2000. A special convention was held later that year to consider the CCU's future; despite the declining membership, the convention decided that the CCU should continue to operate as a labour central.
