Canadian Congress of Labour : The first convention of the Canadian Congress of Labour (CCL) was held in 1940 and marked the merger of the All-Canadian Congress of Labour and the Canadian Committee for Industrial Organization, which was composed of the Canadian sections of Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) industrial unions expelled from the Trades and Labor Congress of Canada (TLC) in 1939. With the influx of the more powerful and larger industrial unions of the CIO, the CCL was able to pursue a more active role in organizing Canadian workers. Its industrial approach to organization made the CCL more successful than the TLC in organizing new members in mass-production industries. In order to organize workers in industries outside the jurisdictions of its affiliated international and national unions, the CCL established industry organizing committees and directly chartered local unions; where numbers warranted, organizing committees and directly chartered locals were converted to national federations or into new unions. During the 1940s and early 1950s, the CCL became an important force in the labour movement; it grew from 77,000 members in 1940 to 378,000 by the time of the 1956 merger with the TLC.
The officers in the CCL executive committee, elected at annual conventions, consisted of the president, secretary-treasurer, and a varying number of vice-presidents and general executive committee members. Initially there were one vice-president and four general executive committee members; by 1956, there were four vice-presidents and eight general executive committee members. The CCL's first and only president was Aaron Mosher of the Canadian Brotherhood of Railway Employees; Pat Conroy of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) served as secretary-treasurer from 1941 to 1951, and also doubled as the director of organization. Conroy's successor as secretary-treasurer was Donald MacDonald, also of the UMWA. The larger CCL executive council consisted of these elected officers as well as one representative from each affiliated national and international union and national federation. Since the council was required only to meet twice yearly, the daily affairs of the CCL were carried out by the executive committee members. The CCL's staff expanded with the federation, and by the mid 1950s there were directors of organization, education and welfare, international affairs, research, and public relations; other staff included an executive secretary of the political action committee, a general executive secretary, regional directors of organization, staff organizers, and regional office staff. Below the national level, municipal labour councils and (in most provinces) provincial federations of labour affiliated to the CCL sought to promote the legislative and organizational goals of the industrial union movement in their communities. On the international level, the CCL participated first in the World Federation of Trade Unions and, after 1949, in the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions. More details of the CCL's early operations are available in A. Andras, "The Government of a Central Labour Body," in "Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science," Vol. XIII, No. 4, November 1947.
The CCL took a more active and partisan role in politics than did the TLC. It officially endorsed the social-democratic Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) as the political arm of labour, and many CCL leaders ran as CCF candidates in provincial and federal elections. Politics also arose in internal CCL affairs; the rivalry between supporters of the two main parties on the left, the CCF and the Communist Party of Canada, was a recurring theme in the CCL in the 1940s. Late in the decade, the CCL expelled several unions closely associated with the Communist Party.
The CCL and the TLC first struck committees to examine prospects for unity in 1953. Joint meetings of the unity committees were followed by a no-raiding agreement in 1954 and a merger agreement in May 1955. The TLC and CCL formally merged at the founding convention of the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) in April 1956.
