Lumber Workers Industrial Union of Canada

LWUIC
Lumber Workers' Industrial Union of Canada
Founded1924
Dissolved1935
Location
Key people
A. T. Hill, J. Gillhead, Alfred Hautamäki and Kalle Salo.
AffiliationsWorkers' Party of Canada, Communist Party of Canada

The Lumber Workers Industrial Union of Canada was a trade union of lumberjacks in Canada. LWIUC was founded in Sault Ste. Marie 1924 by Finnish communists, who were dissatisfied with the Lumber Workers Industrial Union of the Industrial Workers of the World and the OBU.[1] The two founding national secretaries of LWIUC were Alfred Hautamäki and Kalle Salo, both Finns.[1] A prominent figure in the founding of LWIUC was A. T. Hill, a former wobblie and the leader of the Finnish section of the Communist Party of Canada. Overall, LWIUC maintained strong links with the Communist Party. Through the halls run by the Finnish Organization of Canada (an organization that was collectively affiliated with the Workers' Party of Canada, the legal front of the Communist Party), LWIUC rapidly gained thousands of members.[2] The headquarters of the LWIUC were initially at Port Arthur.[3]

  1. ^ a b Saarinen, Oiva W. Between a Rock and a Hard Place A Historical Geography of the Finns in the Sudbury Area. Waterloo, Ont: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1999. p. 194
  2. ^ Iacovetta, Franca. A Nation of Immigrants: Women, Workers, and Communities in Canadian History, 1840s - 1960s. Toronto [u.a.]: Univ. of Toronto Press, 1998. pp. 303-304
  3. ^ Abel, Kerry M. Changing Places: History, Community, and Identity in Northeastern Ontario. Montreal; Ithaca: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2006. p. 174