Caw: Strength, Passion, Versatility in Todays Fight for Labour Representation

The Canadian Auto Workers Unions is one of the defining results of the hard fought battles for union recognition in Canada’s labour movement. Since its hard fought days of creation the CAW has become the largest and the most influential private sector unions in the country, with even more support coming from its parent union the United Auto Workers. The union has expanded its central role in autoworker representation and branched out to represent a massive portfolio of workers across all areas of the private sector. The large role that the CAW plays is the result of a long fight throughout its history that has seen a vast array of highs and lows that have forced the union become a dynamic organization that can navigate its treacherous course. The dynamic nature that the CAW has leaded it to follow various campaigns of political influence, various organizing techniques, and faced all kinds of worker issues that needed to be addressed. In order to accomplish the goals that it has garnered over its history many varying strategies were used in order to succeed. Some strategies were more successful than others and some not effective at all, however they all played an important role in building a strong private sector union that fights for fair representation of its member. This paper will carefully examine and critique the different campaigns that the CAW has undertaken over the last couple of decades and the strategies it has used to achieve them. Specifically, the CAW’s approach to party-union relations, the auto crisis, secure pension plans, and its new role in multinational companies are all key campaigns of the CAW that will be examined.   All these campaigns have had an important role in defining the CAW as the powerful union it has become, but some areas have been more influential than others.
The most dominant campaign the CAW has engaged in is its union-party relations that it has been constantly involved in, in order to try and advance its own political... [continues]

Read full essay