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The United Steelworkers is everybody’s union. Our members work in nearly every industry and in every job imaginable, in all regions of the country. Working people choose the Steelworkers because they know the importance of strong, democratic representation on the job.

This guide briefly outlines the structure and services of our union.

Choosing the Steelworkers means joining more than 250,000 other members in the most diverse private sector union in Canada.

Not only are Steelworkers producing the ore in Canada's mines and making the steel in the country's steel mills, they are making auto parts, furniture, working in electronics, chemicals, metal fabricating and plastics.

MANY FACES, MANY INDUSTRIES

Not only are Steelworkers producing the ore in Canada’s mines and making the steel in the country’s steel mills, they are making railway freight cars, electronics, auto parts, tires, rubber, plastics, aluminum, glass, foam, cement, furnaces, air conditioners, fireplaces, shelving, furniture, mattresses, floor tiles, paints, blinds, watches, potato chips and baked goods.

Steelworkers work in banks and credit unions, legal clinics, nursing homes, hotels, restaurants, cafeterias, warehouses, manufacturing plants, mines, steel plants, security companies, call centres, universities, offices, trucking companies, fish plants, airports and resorts.

Steelworkers are men and women of every ethnic background in every industry and job. We are proud of our diverse membership - it represents the diversity of Canada.

Every Steelworker has a voice and a vote because it’s the members who run the union.

Our union represents men and women at more than 1,500 workplaces across Canada. Local unions are created by employees - just like you - who decide to join together to bargain a better deal. That means more job security, a healthier and safer place to work, benefits, and an end to unfair treatment.

THE MOST DEMOCRATIC UNION

The membership of each local elects its own officers, and each bargaining unit elects its own bargaining committee members. Each unit sets its own goals for bargaining, and each member votes by secret ballot on whether to accept the collective agreement.

Unique amongst unions in Canada, the Steelworkers ensures that all members have a vote, not only on their local officers every three years, but also in the election every four years of district, national and international officers. Each member votes in a secret ballot referendum. Most other unions elect their top officers by a vote of delegates at a convention.

Democracy in the Steelworkers means officers at every level are responsible to the membership.

The union’s overall policies are set at the biennial Canadian Policy Conference and at the Steelworkers’ International Constitutional Convention.

UNION DUES AT WORK

The dues Steelworkers pay come right back to members in a wide-range of union services and benefits available across Canada.

Dues pay for union education programs, health and safety training, workers’ compensation assistance, grievance representation, research and legal services, bargaining support, pension expertise, organizing and political campaigns, as well as the daily operations of local unions and overall union administration. The Steelworkers is also able to sustain an impressive strike and defense fund through the dues structure. These funds are there when members need them the most.

Dues give the union the power to fight for members’ rights at all levels and on many fronts, today and in the future.

HOW MUCH?

Dues are 1.3 per cent of total earnings, plus two cents per hour worked. Those two cents per hour sustain an organizing fund to help other men and women join our union. No dues are paid if you are off work because of a leave of absence, layoff, injury or sickness. Our dues structure is both fair and reasonable. Dues are also tax-deductible, which makes a good deal even better.

Your dues give you a real say in your workplace, along with the right to bargain for better job security, higher wages, a healthy and safe job, a good pension and other benefits.

DO MEMBERS HAVE A SAY?

Dues dollars are collected and banked in Canadian banks and credit unions, under the authority of the Canadian union directors, who are elected by Canadian Steelworkers.

Steelworkers oversee how dues are set by sending delegates from the locals to the union’s Constitutional Convention.

Just as important, members have a say in where their money goes. Local and overall union accounts are audited regularly. The international treasurer issues an audited public report to the local unions. All of this financial information is available to every member. It adds up to accountability at every level.

GETTING WHAT YOU PAY FOR

The United Steelworkers bargains some of the best wage and benefit packages in Canada, genuine retirement security, health and safety protection, dental programs, job security, anti-harassment protection and tough contract language. For working people, that’s a big return, every day of the year, on a relatively small investment.

BARGAINING THE BEST

Steelworker collective agreements across Canada have set patterns for thousands of workers. The best pensions in Canadian industry have been negotiated by the Steelworkers. Anti-discrimination clauses in our contracts pre-dated human rights legislation by decades. The union also negotiates protection for workers against sexual harassment in the workplace.

The Steelworkers has negotiated major collective bargaining breakthroughs like fully-indexed pensions, union-selected worker health and safety inspectors and innovative health care benefit programs. The Steelcare Life and Health Benefit Plan is a union-operated, non-profit plan, which provides health and insurance benefits like life insurance, prescription drug coverage, vision care, extended health care, dental benefits and long term disability insurance for Steelworkers across Ontario and Canada.

In Education - Every year, thousands of Steelworkers are trained by their union in health and safety, collective bargaining, workers’ compensation, leadership, and many other union skills. We believe worker education means real power.

In Research - Experts in economics and public policy provide the facts and figures needed by union representatives and local unions so they can bargain the best possible collective agreements, solve health and safety problems, and influence governments on vital issues.

In Legal Services - Steelworker staff lawyers make sure that local unions and members get the best legal representation possible, and ensure fair treatment in the workplace.

In Health and Safety - Steelworker staff work with local unions to educate members, represent them in workers’ compensation matters, and fight for better health and safety in workplaces across the country.

In Communications - Steelworker staff make sure that members’ victories are publicized in newspapers, on television and radio. They compile the union’s own information into publications and video productions, along with material for collective bargaining.

In Organizing - The union’s staff and activists help thousands of new members to join the Steelworkers every year.

THE STEELWORKERS IN ONTARIO AND ATLANTIC CANADA  

The United Steelworkers of today barely resembles the mostly-male industrial union of the 1930s and ‘40s. Now more than 27 per cent of Steelworkers are women, and there is a growing membership amongst visible minority workers. The increasing diversity of the membership has worked to strengthen the basic principles on which the union was founded.

The Steelworkers is divided into 12 geographical districts across North America. Ontario and the Atlantic provinces form District 6, the largest district in the union. More than 80 000 Steelworkers are employed by over 800 employers in Ontario alone.

The Steelworkers’ history in Ontario is a rich and distinctive story of breakthroughs, struggles and victories for improvements in legislation and in the workplace.

The Steelworkers’ Organizing Committee (SWOC) began organizing from the Labour Temple in Hamilton. Local 1005 was organized at Stelco in 1936, but it took several years to gain management’s recognition of the union.

In 1940, an independent steelworkers’ union at Algoma in Sault Ste. Marie affiliated with SWOC, and the union also began organizing small fabricating plants. With the growth of the steel industry during the Second World War, steelworkers continued to organize and the union’s foundation was built.

Soon, gold miners in Timmins and across Northern Ontario signed on as the union made important wage and benefit gains throughout the 1950s.

Union mergers with the Steelworkers have included the merger in 1967 with the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers. In 1985, the Upholsterers’ International Union merged and, more recently, mergers with the United Rubber Workers and the Aluminum, Brick and Glass Workers have brought together several established unions under the Steelworkers banner. Canadian Steelworkers have also been joined by the Transportation Communications Union (TCU) and, in Quebec, by the Federation of Aluminum Sector Workers (FSSA).

Historic struggles that have led to improved working conditions for Steelworkers and other workers include the 1974 strike in Elliott Lake, where uranium miners took action, not for better wages, but for the necessary workplace safety protection that the company would not provide. The result was the 1975 Royal Commission on Mine Safety. The Commission’s report forced several changes in mine safety law, made way for Ontario’s first Occupational Health and Safety Act, and for a worker’s right to refuse unsafe work.

The Steelworkers has also taken a unique approach to international affairs. The Steelworker Humanity Fund was established in 1985 as a voluntary, negotiated check-off for members and locals, with the proceeds directed in the early years to international relief and development, as well as a portion allocated to relief efforts in Canada. The Humanity Fund now generates over $1 million a year, and has links with other worker organizations around the world.

The Steelworkers is a leader amongst unions in attracting new members. Over 9,500 Ontario workers joined the Steelworkers between 1998 and 1999. They work in every type of workplace – universities, call centres, mines, warehouses and manufacturing plants. They share the common desire to restore equality in the workplace. And joining the Steelworkers gives them the opportunity and the right to make those changes.

In Ontario, the union has 18 offices plus the District headquarters. Drawn from the membership ranks, experienced staff representatives assist local unions in collective bargaining, research, health and safety, and more.

The United Steelworkers is committed to fighting for better wages, benefits and working conditions; to providing a democratic voice in the decisions that affect our working lives; and to acting as a progressive social movement to improve the lives of working men and women and their families.