The Canadian Auto Workers Union (CAW-Canada) is the largest private sector union in Canada. The full name of the CAW is the National Automobile, Aerospace, Transportation and General Workers Union of Canada, a title that better reflects the actual diversity of the Union beyond the automotive sector. The CAW was founded in June 1985 following a split from the U.S. based United Auto Workers Union (UAW).
In the early eighties, when globalization was quickly becoming something-not-to-be-questioned, the Canadian section of the UAW stubbornly embarked on a direction that went against the tide of this economic change. They were largely opposed to globalization and viewed it as a threat to the future employment and overall quality of life of Canadian workers.This was also at the time of a continuing recession that began in the late 1970s, and where significant layoffs left many American autoworkers particularly demoralized. About one-third of the United States labour force (some 300,000 autoworkers) was out of work and the steady ascent of Japanese imports indicated that this was not just a cyclical downturn. Japan was becoming a major force in the North American market, directly competing with the Big Three North American vehicle makers: GM, Ford and Chrysler. Canadian auto workers were also reminded daily of the Japanese threat, and it was clear that Canada could not, ultimately, escape the uncertainty experienced in the United States. However, Canadian workers did not experience, to the same degree, the ill effects of closures and layoffs in large because Canada's favourable model mix and relatively newer plants, which left it less vulnerable to closures. This was directly related to the Automotive Products Trade Agreement (commonly known as the Auto Pact).
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The Auto Pact was a trade agreement signed back in January 1965 between Canada (Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson) and the U.S. (President Lyndon B. Johnson) that removed tariffs on cars, trucks, buses, tires, and automotive parts between the two countries that greatly benefited GM, Ford and Chrysler. In exchange, the Big Three agreed that automobile production in Canada would not fall below 1964 levels and that for every five new cars sold in Canada, three new ones would be made in Canada. Based on the Auto Pact and a weakening Canadian dollar in the early 80s, a geographical difference developed between the two countries that provided some relief to the Canadian auto worker. Consequently, the American side of the UAW was pressured to accept concessions while the Canadian section had some space to contemplate opposition to the corporate agenda (globalization). This caused differences in opinion and collective bargaining strategies between the parent UAW and the Canadian section of the Union.
At a time when the American union was seen as giving away too much in the way of concessions during collective bargaining, the final straw came when the UAW began lobbying the U.S. Congress to force the transfer of auto production from Canada to the U.S. The Canadian branch felt there was a lack of a representative voice within the UAW and during its conventions.By 1984, significant differences in the value of negotiated contracts and divergent union objectives had set the stage for the split of the Canadian UAW members and the creation of the CAW, a process documented in the Genie Award winning film, Final Offer.
Under the leadership of Bob White, then the UAW's Canadian Director, and his assistants, Basil ‘Buzz’ Hargrove and Bob Nickerson, the Canadian-based membership officially broke away from the UAW. Bob White was acclaimed as the first President of the CAW, while Bob Nickerson became the new Canadian Union's Secretary-Treasurer. White went on to serve 3 terms as president.White left the CAW in 1992 to become President of the Canadian Labour Congress, of which he served until 1999. White became a national figure in Canadian labour and politics during this time and was outspoken in his opposition to the then proposed Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement. He has been awarded doctor of law degrees from York University, the University of Toronto, the University of Windsor and St. Francis Xavier University. He was also inducted into the Order of Canada as an Officer for his exceptional service to the country.White's long time assistant, Buzz Hargrove, succeeded him in becoming the second President of the CAW at a special convention in 1992. Joining him as national leader was Jim O'Neil as Secretary-Treasurer, who was replacing the retiring Bob Nickerson.
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Bob WhiteFirst President of the CAW

Hargrove has been a longtime proponent of social unionism, and his supporters claim that he has steered the CAW to become a more activist union.Following many successful years as the President of the CAW, Hargrove became Canada's most widely recognized labour leader.In 1998, Brock University honoured Hargrove with a Doctorate of Laws degree. He has also received honorary doctorates from the University of Windsor in 2003 and from Wilfrid Laurier University in 2004. On Canada Day - July 1, 2008, Hargrove was made an Officer of the Order of Canada.In the early debates about how aggressive the CAW should be in pursuing mergers, Hargrove, then still one of Bob White’s assistants, argued that the potential growth in the union’s existing sectors was low, while the risk of decline was high. In addition to continuing to organize in these traditional sectors, Hargrove stressed that the union must be more diversified. Furthermore, there was some responsibility on the part of the union to welcome any groups it could help. As long as the viability of the CAW wasn’t being endangered, such an expansion of the union was, he argued, one vital aspect of social unionism.
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Buzz HargroveCAW President: 1992-2008

The diversification would give the union a national base of like-minded groups, allowing it to continue to play a leading role in determining the ideology and direction of the Canadian labour movement.Shortly after the separation from the UAW, the CAW began to grow quickly in size and stature. It merged with a number of other unions, both big and small, to double in size and ultimately becoming the largest private sector union in the country. Some of the more notable mergers were with the Fishermen, Food, and Allied Workers (FFAW) and the Canadian Brotherhood of Railway Transport and General Workers (CBRT&GW), which CAW National Council 4000 and its five Regional Locals were members.The CBRT&GW, which began as an industrial union in the rail industry three decades before industrial unionism made its breakthrough in manufacturing, merged with the CAW in June of 1994.When the Canadian UAW was first being organized in the 1930s, the CBRT&GW (then the Canadian Brotherhood of Railway Employees - CBRE) ranked as one of the largest unions in the country. It also preceded the CAW in becoming a general union across the country, having moved from representing only railway workers to also speaking for workers in hotels and hospitals, truck drivers, garage mechanics, ferry workers, and workers on the Great Lakes. The CBRT&GW’s rail members, along with the CAW’s earlier merger with the Brotherhood of Railway Carmen and the government-mandated vote to streamline the number of unions in the rail industry, left the CAW as the dominant union in Canada’s rail sector.Although the first bargaining round in rail under the CAW banner ended, as past rounds normally did, with back-to-work legislation, the union nevertheless showed that the mergers did create the possibility of developing new and more effective strategies. In bringing together seven of the rail unions, the CAW acted as a catalyst to replace much of the past distrust and tensions with collective confidence and discipline. Unity was possible.Furthermore, sections of railway workers had, almost a decade previous, argued against the traditional strategy of a shut-down, which usually accomplished nothing more than bringing in the Federal Government. Now, as part of the CAW, they advocated focusing on one company in order to increase pressure on that company as work was shifted to its competition (the strategy was first developed in the auto sector). And, by leaving some rail lines running rather than shutting down the entire national system, this tactic would weaken the rationale for government intervention. The union also experimented with very modest job actions - and even rumours of actions - to see if they chased business to other companies.The streamlining of the economy, just like the streamlining of auto production, clearly left the companies extremely vulnerable to creative tactics. The issue that remained was to convince the rail unions outside the CAW that, from a unified base, such strategies were worthwhile.Mergers with airline groups and the broadly diversified CBRT&GW raised the total number of women in the union to over 40,000. This reinforced the demand for leadership schools for women and strengthened the base for more effective women’s networks across the country. The rail mergers almost doubled the number of skilled trades in the union to over 35,000, strengthening their potential lobbying effectiveness nationally and provincially. The merger with the Canadian Textile and Chemical Union led to the innovative establishment of a storefront office in downtown Toronto, allowing the union to work with, and build ties to, the neighbouring immigrant communities.The most controversial of the mergers involved the Fishermen, Food, and Allied Workers Union (FFAW) of Newfoundland. The FFAW was “more than just a union.” It was a powerful presence in Newfoundland’s communities and in the politics of the province. In the early seventies, the leaders had, remarkably, forged a union that united workers in diverse circumstances: independent fishermen who owned their own boats, trawler workers on company boats who shared in the catch, and fish plant workers on shore. After a series of militant strikes, the group merged with the Packinghouse Workers, an industrial union. A subsequent merger with the Retail Workers resulted in the creation of a new organization, the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW).When the Newfoundland workers realized that their union neither reflected their values nor provided the services they needed and that their problems couldn't be solved through internal democratic procedures, they decided to break-away from the UFCW. But would the UFCW accept the separation peacefully? The FFAW leadership concluded that leaving the UFCW necessitated simultaneously joining another union. The CAW was the obvious choice because of its principles and because few unions would risk the consequent hostility of the internationals.President Bob White and the CAW leadership understood the possible implications of allowing the Newfoundland workers to join the union: a bitter and costly fight with the UFCW, attacks from the international unions that saw this move as opening the door for other groups considering going Canadian, and the financial costs of taking on a union with low dues and high costs. From the perspective of direct gains for the CAW, the merger offered little. Nevertheless, the NEB and the union voted in favour of merging. Workers were not the property of any union. If committed unionists and determined workers wanted to join a different organization, and they could not realistically do so because there was no way to express and carry out a democratic decision, then the CAW had a responsibility to support them.The legal and organizational battles with the UFCW cost the CAW a very substantial sum of money. The merger shook up the labour movement and seemed to put the issue of workers’ democratic rights inside their unions on the agenda. However, the lack of consensus within labour assured that this issue of internal union democracy was never satisfactorily resolved.The CAW voiced strong opposition to the then Federal Government of Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and such policies as the Goods and Services Tax and free trade. Under White and Hargrove, the CAW moved toward the European model of social unionism and away from American business-style unionism.The mergers nationalized the union by involving all regions of the country and no longer limiting unionization to central Canada. The mergers transformed the union into a microcosm of the entire Canadian economy, not just of the heavy manufacturing sector.The CAW was now building cars, planes, trains, buses, subway cars, and the accompanying components. It was digging salt, nickel, and coal out of the ground, refining aluminum, and pulling fish out of the sea. Members of the CAW were shipping resources by rail and truck, transporting people by plane, passenger trains, truck, and bus. They were manufacturing telecommunications equipment and servicing the equipment to facilitate national and international communication. They worked in hotels and casinos, served food in restaurants, and cared for patients in nursing homes.The building of the CAW wasn't just the diversification of the union into a number of sectors and regions throughout Canada, but its central role in so many parts of the economy across the country. The CAW had quickly become the largest union in a wide range of manufacturing sectors, the dominant union in transportation services and the fisheries, and an increasingly important union in mining and the hospitality sector.Although the mergers certainly added new and difficult challenges, they were also a source of strength and vitality. The mergers brought unions with their own rich histories, activists with talent and experience, and the energy of new members. In addition, they encouraged the development of a broader working class consciousness on the part of the past and future CAW members. CAW activists, having heard a report on the fisheries at the council, read the newspaper differently and paid more attention to what was happening to working people in Newfoundland. Students in the Paid Education Leave (PEL) program at the CAW's impressive Family Education Centre in Port Elgin, Ontario on the shores of Lake Huron, listening to a passenger agent explain the impact of lean production on her work, realized that work reorganization was in fact part of something bigger and that service workers were really workers. When the CAW celebrated its tenth year, it was remarkably different from the organization that nervously left the UAW in 1985.
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On July 8, 2008, Buzz Hargrove announced at press conference that he would be retiring earlier than expected as the union's National President. His current term (6th in total as President) was to take him up to the CAW's next Constitutional Convention slated for Quebec City in August 2009. Hargrove announced that he planned on retiring in September 2008.During this press conference, it was also announced that the Union's National Executive Board unanimously endorsed Ken Lewenza, President of CAW Local 444 and CAW Council to be Hargrove's successor. During a Special Convention held on September 6, 2008 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, Ken Lewenza was elected as the new National President of the CAW, becoming the third National President to be elected since the formation of the Union.
The three National Presidents of the CAW (from left to right), Buzz Hargrove, Ken Lewenza and Bob White, taken during the Sept.6/08 convention to elect a successor to Buzz Hargrove

Whether the issue is wages, job security, improved health care benefits and pensions, child care, legal services support, better working conditions or having a real voice in a democratic workplace, Canadians know that the best way to make these gains is through solidarity and a strong union. The CAW offers just that.The CAW is "a different kind of union" because our fight for justice does not stop at the bargaining table. The CAW continues to be at the forefront on economic and social issues that affect workers at the workplace, in their communities and around the globe.
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Ken LewenzaCAW President2008 - present
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Almost 25-years since forming, the CAW has a rich history formed by years of workers' struggle and innovation. We have proudly celebrated our victories and have been quick to learn from our defeats.Today, the breakdown and profile of the CAW membership is as follows:
Major Auto - 13%
Auto Parts - 11%
Health and Social Services - 9%
Other Manufacturing - 9%
Retail - 9%
Hospitality and Gaming - 7%
Road Transportation - 6%
Air Transportation - 5%
Aerospace - 4%
Food and Beverage Service - 4%
Rail Transportation - 4%
Truck and Bus - 4%
Fisheries - 3%
Mining and Metals - 3%
Education - 2%
Electrical - 2%
Vehicle Services - 2%
Marine Transportation - 1%
Ship Building - 1%
Other Services - 1%
CAW ConstitutionVideo LinkNot a CAW member?Click here for an invitation from past CAW President Buzz Hargrove to join the Canadian Auto Workers Union
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