The Canadian Auto Workers: The Birth and Transformation of a Union

The Canadian Auto Workers union, the CAW, has a long and rich history. Part of the U.S.-based United Auto Workers for almost fifty years, the CAW separated from its American parent in 1985. Today, the Canadian Auto Workers union encompasses members from a broad range of industries. It is also one of the most powerful unions in the country. Yet few people know the union's history, how it acquired its strength, or what accounts for its split with its American parent.
This illustrated history provides a fascinating look at the union from its origins to the present. Beginning in the twenties, Sam Gindin describes the early years of the automobile industry and the emergence of GM, Ford, and Chrysler. He looks at the birth of the UAW in 1936, the conflicts that rocked the union in the fifties, the signing of theAutopact in the sixties, and the historic split of the Canadian section from the UAW two decades later. Finally, he considers the issues facing the union and the Canadian labour movement as the century draws to a close.
By providing a profile of the CAW as well as the labour and social movements that it helped shape, The Canadian Auto Workers offers us something unusual -- an engrossing glimpse of our past, written from a union perspective.

SAM GINDIN is a labour economist, a leading authority on the auto industry, and a contributor to many labour-based publications. He is the assistant to the president of the CAW.