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Displaying 21-36 of 36 results
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Alfred Charpentier

Alfred Charpentier, labour leader (b at Montréal 25 Nov 1888; d there 13 Nov 1982). Working as a bricklayer 1905-15, he became president of the International Union of Bricklayers in 1911.

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Alexander Whyte Wright

Alexander Whyte Wright, journalist, labour leader, politician (b at Elmira, Ont 17 Dec 1845; d c 1919). After some business attempts in southwestern Ontario, he became a journalist and newspaper editor in the 1870s.

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Bob White

Robert White, OC, labour leader (born 28 April 1935 in Upper Lands, Northern Ireland; died 19 February 2017 in Kincardine, ON). Among his many achievements as a union organizer, White was the founding president of the Canadian Auto Workers union. His autobiography, Hard Bargains: My Life on the Line, was published in 1987.

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Jeanne Corbin

Jeanne Henriette Corbin, communist activist and union organizer (born in March 1906 in Cellettes, France; died 7 May 1944 in London, Ontario). A member of the Communist Party of Canada and secretary of the Canadian Labour Defense League, she defended the rights of Canadian workers for over 15 years. She gained particular prominence for her role in the lumber workers’ strike in Rouyn, Quebec in 1933.

Article

Fernand Daoust

Fernand Daoust, trade union official (b at Montréal 26 Oct 1926). Between 1969 and 1993, he was successively General Secretary and President of the Québec Federation of Labour (QFL), and a major force and key figure on the Québécois scene.

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Gérard Picard

Gérard Picard, labour leader, (born at Stratford-Centre, Qué 27 May 1907, died at Montréal, 19 Jun 1980). After completing a law degree at Laval, he was a journalist for L'Événement and L'Action catholique in Québec City during the early 1930s.

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Dennis McDermott

Dennis McDermott, trade unionist (born 3 November 1922 in Portsmouth, England; died 13 February 2003 in Peterborough, Ontario). McDermott came to Canada after WWII and in 1948 worked in Toronto as an assembler and a welder. In 1954 he became an organizer for the United Automobile Workers (UAW).

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Helen (Ma) Armstrong

Helen (Ma) Armstrong (née Jury), labour activist, women’s rights activist (born 17 June 1875 in Toronto, Ontario; died 17 April 1947 in Los Angeles, California). Helen Armstrong was a labour activist who fought for the rights of working-class women throughout her life. She was the leader of the Winnipeg Women’s Labor League and a central figure in the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike. She campaigned for unions, a minimum wage and social security, and against conscription. Armstrong was arrested for her activism at least three times, including twice during the Winnipeg General Strike. Historian Esyllt Jones described Helen Armstrong as “the exception in a male-dominated labour movement.”

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Fred Rose

Fred Rose, union organizer, politician (b Fred Rosenberg at Lublin, Poland 7 Dec 1907; d at Warsaw, Poland 16 Mar 1983). Rose moved with his parents to Montréal. In the 1930s, as a member of the Young Communist League, he organized unions of unemployed and unskilled workers.

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Bromley Armstrong

Bromley Lloyd Armstrong, CM, OOnt, Black trade unionist, community organizer and activist (born 9 February 1926 in Kingston, Jamaica; died 17 August 2018 in Toronto, ON). Bromley Armstrong was a pivotal figure in the early anti-discrimination campaigns in Ontario that led to Canada’s first anti-discrimination laws. A self-described “blood and guts” ally of the working poor, Armstrong demonstrated a lifelong commitment to the trade union movement and the battle against disadvantage and discrimination. For more than six decades, Armstrong worked for human rights, helping to generate civic and government support for racial equality and advocating for human rights reforms in public policy.

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Stanley G. Grizzle

Stanley George Sinclair Grizzle, CM, OOnt, citizenship judge, politician, civil servant, labour union activist (born 18 November 1918 in Toronto, ON; died 12 November 2016 in Toronto, ON). Stanley Grizzle had an illustrious career as a railway porter, soldier, civil servant, citizenship judge and activist for the rights of Black Canadians.