The Communication Workers of Canada (CWC) was a

trade union A trade union (British English) or labor union (American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers whose purpose is to maintain or improve the conditions of their employment, such as attaining better wages ...

, mostly representing telephone workers in Canada. The union originated as the Canadian Communication Workers' Council, a division of the

Communications Workers of America The Communications Workers of America (CWA) is the largest communications and media labor union in the United States, representing about 700,000 members in both the private and public sectors (also in Canada and Puerto Rico). The union has 27 loc ...

, founded in 1967. In 1972, it broke away from its parent union, to become the independent Communication Workers of Canada, under the leadership of Fred Pomeroy. It initially had 4,000 members, mostly from

SaskTel Saskatchewan Telecommunications Holding Corporation, operating as SaskTel, is a Telecommunications in Canada, Canadian Crown corporations of Canada, crown-owned telecommunications firm based in the province of Saskatchewan. Owned by the provinci ...

, with smaller numbers from Northern Electric and Toronto Telephone House. In 1976, the union was recognized as representing 12,000

Bell Canada Bell Canada (commonly referred to as Bell) is a Canadian telecommunications company headquartered at 1 Carrefour Alexander-Graham-Bell in the borough of Verdun, Quebec, in Canada. It is an ILEC (incumbent local exchange carrier) in the province ...

technical workers in Ontario and Quebec, while in 1979, 7,400 operators and cafeteria staff at Bell joined, moving from the Communication Union of Canada. In 1983, the union merged with the Canadian District of the

International Union of Electrical Workers The International Union of Electrical Workers (IUE) was a North American Trade union, labor union representing workers in the electrical manufacturing industry. While consistently using the acronym IUE, it took on several full names during its h ...

, to form the Communications and Electrical Workers of Canada.

References

1972 establishments in Canada 1983 disestablishments in Canada Communications trade unions Defunct trade unions in Canada Trade unions disestablished in 1972 Trade unions established in 1983 {{Canada-trade-union-stub