Editing Canadian Labour Congress (section)

== Relationship with political parties ==
In the aftermath of the Second World War, various political trends played out within the Canadian labour movement as political parties and their supporters rallied for leadership control of the emerging labour movement.{{fact|date=September 2024}}

The [[Trades and Labor Congress of Canada]] (TLC) held a policy of non-partisan activity right up until the formation of the CLC. However, within the TLC, efforts were made by [[Co-operative Commonwealth Federation]] (CCF) labour activists to attain a policy of CCF support. A significant measure of this support was the 133&ndash;133 tie vote at the TLC's 1954 Ontario convention on the matter of CCF support.{{fact|date=September 2024}}

With the [[Canadian Congress of Labour]] (CCL), the situation was more complex. As a child of the [[Great Depression]] and the international romance with revolution in the decades immediately after [[Russian Revolution|1917]], [[Communist Party of Canada]] labour activists had taken leadership positions in several key unions and locals of CCL-affiliated unions. Indeed, the [[Workers' Unity League]] (WUL) was a group of Communist-led unions in the 1930s with considerable organizational success. With adoption of the position of a [[united front]] against [[fascism]] after 1939, the WUL merged with the CCL.{{fact|date=September 2024}}

With the CCL, there were many local unions with Communist leadership. In particular, the [[United Auto Workers]] locals in [[Windsor, Ontario]] were Communist-led. The orientation of the Windsor UAW locals deeply affected the legislative and parliamentary elections in the Windsor area. In the [[1943 Ontario general election|1943 elections]], the CCF had won all three Windsor-area seats. But in [[1945 Ontario general election|1945]] the UAW locals endorsed three UAW activists who ran as "UAW-Liberal-Labour" candidates with the support of the [[Labor-Progressive Party]] (LLP). As a result, the CCF lost all three Windsor seats. Taking advantage of a misstep by the leadership of [[United Auto Workers Local 200|UAW Local 200]] in trying to rally a national one-day strike in sympathy of [[Ford Motor Company|Ford]] workers, in 1946 CCF activists within the Locals 195 and 200 overturned their leadership. In addition, the UAW International Board elections of 1947 gave stronger support to [[Walter Reuther]], the CCF-supporting International President. Between these two trends, the Canadian UAW leadership changed directions. In the [[1948 Ontario general election|1948 provincial elections]], the United Auto Workers supported CCF candidates.{{fact|date=September 2024}}

The [[International Woodworkers of America]] (IWA) in [[British Columbia]] was also Communist-led. When, in 1948, CCF supporters gained control of the IWA's [[New Westminster]] local, other BC-based (and Communist-led) locals of the IWA withdrew in an attempt to form an independent union. However, this effort failed when the union members did not endorse the change. Efforts to dislodge communists from the [[United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America|United Electrical]] (UE) and the [[Western Federation of Miners|Mine Mill]] union did not succeed, and these unions were expelled from the Canadian Congress of Labour. By 1950, the Canadian Congress of Labour had become a federation of unions which, to a greater or lesser extent, all supported the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation.{{fact|date=September 2024}}

With the Trades and Labour Congress of Canada&ndash;Canadian Congress of Labour merger complete in 1956, a further step was taken. Although political discussion was downplayed during the merger talks, in 1958 the Canadian Labour Congress and Co-operative Commonwealth Federation set up a 20-person joint committee to discuss the foundation of a new political party. These talks resulted in the founding of the [[New Democratic Party]] in 1961. The NDP has, in its constitution, a relationship with the labour movement. Many local union organizations directly affiliated with the NDP, giving these local union bodies the right to participate in the Party's conventions and councils. NDP constitution also recognizes the CLC's District Labour Councils, organizations of local unions in a single city or town, as delegating bodies to the conventions of the provincial and federal New Democratic Party sections. Hence, by embedding labour organizations in its structure, the NDP went beyond being simply the party for labour and became the party of labour.{{fact|date=September 2024}}

Since the foundation of the NDP, and particularly since the 1980s, the labour movement's relationship within the social democratic left has changed in two ways. First, unions increased their involvement with social coalition groups such as organizations advocating for women's economic rights, peace or other causes which have an avowedly non-partisan orientation. Second, the relationship of some unions with the NDP became more tactical and seemed less to be a long-term alliance.{{fact|date=September 2024}}

These two trends were apparent in the [[1988 Canadian federal election]]. At the outset of the election campaign, several unions had established partnerships with organizations such as [[The Council of Canadians]] in order to attempt to derail the [[Progressive Conservative Party of Canada|Progressive Conservative]] government's [[Canada–United States Free Trade Agreement]]. These social coalition groups and the [[Liberal Party of Canada|Liberal Party]] made opposition to the Free Trade Agreement the focus of their campaign efforts. While the NDP attained what was then their best result in the party's history (they would win more seats in the [[House of Commons of Canada|House of Commons]] in the [[2011 Canadian federal election|2011]] and [[2015 Canadian federal election|2015]] federal elections), some union leaders publicly criticized the NDP leadership immediately after the election for not being sufficiently focused on opposition to the Free Trade Agreement.{{fact|date=September 2024}}

Since that election, the tactical nature of the relationship between some unions and the NDP has further degraded to their point where the [[Canadian Auto Workers Union]] (CAW), the successor to the Canadian section of the UAW has, since the late 1990s, supported the Liberal Party federally and in Ontario provincial elections. Nonetheless, other significant unions remained steadfast in their support with the NDP and the [[Bloc Québécois]] as their top political priorities, even while maintaining involvement in social coalitions. Given the size of the CAW with the Canadian labour movement, the CAW's support for the Liberals has caused significant problems for the CLC leadership in continuing to follow the Congress's policy of NDP and the Bloc support.{{fact|date=September 2024}}