Workers' Unity League

Workers' Unity League (WUL)
Popular front merger	Congress of Industrial Organizations
Founded	1930
Dissolved	1935
Location	Canada;
Members	40,000
Key people	J.B. McLachlan,; Tom McEwen; Annie Buller ; Arthur "Slim" Evans
Affiliations	Red International of Labour Unions

The Workers' Unity League (WUL) was established in January 1930 as a militant industrial union labour central closely related to the Communist Party of Canada on the instructions of the Communist International.^[2]

This was reflective of the shift in the Communist International's political line that ushered in its "Third Period". Rather than "boring from within"—the policy of the "Second Period" that encouraged Communists to join mainstream labour unions and progressive organizations in order to move them to the revolutionary left—this new line emphasized creating independent communist organizations. The WUL paralleled similar alternative trade union structures elsewhere: the Trade Union Unity League in the US, and the National Minority Movement in the UK.^[3]

Some of the unions affiliated with the WUL include the Mine Workers' Union of Canada, Lumber Workers Industrial Union of Canada and the Relief Camp Workers' Union. Unlike both the Trades and Labor Congress of Canada (TLC) and the All Canadian Congress of Labour (ACCL), the WUL organized the unemployed as well.^[4]^[5]

^ Endicott, Stephen Lyon. Bienfait: The Saskatchewan Miners' Struggle of '31. Toronto [u.a.]: Univ. of Toronto Press, 2002. p. 44
^ Finkel, Alvin (July 23, 2014) [February 7, 2006]. "Workers Unity League". The Canadian Encyclopedia. Retrieved 2021-06-11.
^ Penner, Norman; Foot, Richard (May 30, 2017) [February 6, 2006]. "Communist Party of Canada". The Canadian Encyclopedia. Retrieved 2021-06-11.
^ "Canadian Labour Congress | Canadian trade union association". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2021-06-11.
^ "Organized labour - Establishment of industrial unionism". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2021-06-11.

[1] Endicott, Stephen Lyon. Bienfait: The Saskatchewan Miners' Struggle of '31. Toronto [u.a.]: Univ. of Toronto Press, 2002. p. 44

[2] Finkel, Alvin (July 23, 2014) [February 7, 2006]. "Workers Unity League". The Canadian Encyclopedia. Retrieved 2021-06-11.

[3] Penner, Norman; Foot, Richard (May 30, 2017) [February 6, 2006]. "Communist Party of Canada". The Canadian Encyclopedia. Retrieved 2021-06-11.

[4] "Canadian Labour Congress | Canadian trade union association". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2021-06-11.

[5] "Organized labour - Establishment of industrial unionism". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2021-06-11.

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