Tag : Unionization

Canadian and Colombian labour ministers sign action plan

In May 2016, the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC), together with the CUT (Central Unitaria de Trabajadores) Colombia and Colombian unions , submitted a complaint to the Canadian National Administrative Office (NAO) stating the Government of Colombia failed to comply with its obligations under the Canada-Colombia Agreement on Labour Cooperation (CCOALC). The complaint addressed issues of anti-union violence and the abuse…

Unions become legal in canada (but picketing is outlawed).

On April 18, 1872, the federal government of John A. Macdonald introduced the Trade Unions Act, Canada’s first labour law, which gave workers the legal right to associate in trade unions. It was a direct response to the arrest and criminal prosecution of 24 leaders of the Toronto printers strike by Macdonald’s political opponents – aimed at garnering votes but…

Statement by the Canadian Council of the Canadian Labour Congress

Download the statement The 55 unions represented on the Canadian Council of the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) recognize without exception that when one of our affiliates is attacked, our movement is attacked. Therefore, the CLC condemns, in the strongest possible terms, the decision and actions of the Unifor leadership to disaffiliate from the CLC and raid the members of UNITE…

Ralph Chaplin finishes writing Solidarity Forever, perhaps the most famous labour anthem of all.

SOLIDARITY FOREVER! On January 15, 1915, Ralph Chaplin finished composing a poem he began writing the previous year while he was covering the Kanawha coal miners’ strike in Huntington, West Virginia. Despite his later regrets – Chapman was a dedicated Wobbly who later came to lament the success of industrial unionism – Solidarity Forever has become the labour movement’s most…

“There was a union maid, she never was afraid.”

“In the dark days prior to and during the Great Depression of the thirties there appeared on the Canadian scene a young woman whose fiery spirit and love of humanity carried her to the forefront of the struggles of the men and women who were striving to find a way out of the darkness of poverty, unenlightenment, and despair.” **…