COMM 410 Lecture Notes - Canadian Auto Workers, Labor History Of The United States, United Automobile Workers
Document Summary
The decision of the canadian section of the united auto workers (uaw) to form its own canadian union was rooted in the different responses of unionists in the. Canada and the united states to an increasing belligerence on the part of the corporations. While this break from an "international" union was not the first such action within the canadian labour movement, it was perhaps the most dramatic and certainly the most significant. A simple explanation for the contrasting reactions of uaw members in the two countries to the corporate attack focuses on the differences in their national environments, particularly the different economic conditions which they faced. This event and its implications cannot be understood apart from the dynamics of struggle: that is, from the interaction between a favourable environment in canada and ideology, leadership, structures for participation, and the specifics of recent struggles. But these "environmental" factors were not simply external facts of life.
