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International Unions and the Canadian Trade Union Movement*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 November 2014

J. T. Montague*
Affiliation:
Ottawa
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Extract

More than two-thirds of Canadian trade union members, some 900,000 workers, belong to international unions. Unlike unionists in such countries as the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Australia, whose heritage lies in national organizations, the majority of Canadian workers have for over three-quarters of a century aligned themselves in unions with American workers. The organizations which make up the structurally unique Canadian labour movement are most often relatively small sections of unions operating in the United States and Canada. On both sides of the border the same unions dominate the labour scene–their membership is in the major industries; and their support is essential to the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, and to the Canadian Labour Congress, which are the national labour centres.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association 1957

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Footnotes

*

This paper was presented at the annual meeting of the Canadian Political Association in Montreal, June 7, 1956.

References

1 The One Big Union has agreed to discuss turning its membership over to unions within the Canadian Labour Congress within the next two years. Negotiations are also under way to bring the C.C.C.L. into the newly formed Congress.

2 Proceedings of the Trades and Labor Congress of Canada, 1900, especially the Treasurer's Report, p. 19.

3 Canada, Dept. of Labour, Labour Organization in Canada, annual reports, 1911 to date.Google Scholar

4 For total membership see United States Dept. of Labor, Directory of National and International Labor Unions in the United States, Bulletin no. 1185 (1954).Google Scholar

5 Handbook of Union Government Structure and Procedures, Studies in Personnel Policy, no. 150 (New York, 1955).Google Scholar

6 Ibid., 50.