The Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) has voted overwhelmingly to join the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers (CEP) and form the country’s biggest private-sector union.
More than 600 delegates at a CAW convention in Toronto accepted a package of proposals on Wednesday (Aug. 22) for the new union that would pour millions of dollars more into organizing and open up membership to non-union workers and other citizens.
In a show of hands, delegates voted for a package that would change the unions’ governing structure, financing priorities; improve servicing, strategic direction and extend the group’s reach and influence into communities.
The two unions started formal talks earlier this year in an effort to reinvigorate the labour movement whose membership and bargaining power has declined steadily during the last quarter of a century.
The CAW and CEP currently represent 190,000 and 130,000 workers in more than two dozen sectors.
CEP will hold its own convention in Quebec City in October. If CEP delegates approve the package, the two unions would hold a founding convention next year where they would consider a constitution and new name.
- Torstar News Service