In April 2023, close to 600 USW activists, staff and retirees from across the country gathered in Toronto for the 55th USW National Policy Conference, this central body that guides our union’s direction in Canada.
Under the theme Engage, Mobilize, Organize, conference delegates debated dozens of policy resolutions submitted by USW locals from every region of the country.
“We will celebrate our successes, tackle our challenges, and chart the course to build our union, defend our members and create our members’ future,” USW National Director Marty Warren declared in his conference opening address.
By the close of the conference, after four days of often impassioned debate, delegates had adopted 48 resolutions to shape USW policies to improve the working and living standards of our members and all workers.
In the ensuing two years, USW leaders, staff and activists have been diligently working to implement this ambitious policy agenda. This work affects issues including collective bargaining rights and power, Indigenous engagement and reconciliation, health and safety, education, anti-racism and action on equity, fair trade and sustainable jobs and strengthening human rights and labour solidarity around the globe.
Examples of the resolutions passed by USW activists and the union’s work to implement our policy agenda include:
TRADE, ECONOMY AND WORKERS’ RIGHTS
Responding to several resolutions reslated to trade, the economy and workers’ rights, our union has ramped up our political advocacy, demanding action to combat unfair trade, to create a national industrial strategy to defend key industries, create sustainable jobs and to strengthen collective bargaining power. These efforts have led to successes that include:
- A new federal anti-scab law, benefiting tens of thousands of Steelworkers and hundreds of thousands of other workers.
- The new, federal Sustainable Jobs Act which ensures worker involvement and transparency in the creation of sustainable new jobs in industries across the country.
- Several USW victories in unfair trade cases, the imposition of new tariffs on imports of steel, aluminum and electric vehicles from China; and new “melt and pour” regulations to prevent illegal dumping of foreign products in our markets.
STAND UP FOR STEEL
In June 2024, responding to a policy conference resolution, more than 60 local union leaders representing members in steel-sector workplaces across the country gathered in Ottawa for a national conference to reinvigorate and expand the USW’s Stand Up for Steel campaign. Delegates addressed the urgent challenges facing Canada’s steel sector and met face-to-face with federal members of Parliament and bureaucrats to lobby for meaningful political action to protect Canadian steel jobs and defend the domestic industry and communities reliant on steel production. Forceful political advocacy continues for measures including securing the use of Canadian-made steel in infrastructure projects, decarbonization and expanded capacity investment in the steel sector and developing a national and North American green steel strategy.
INDIGENOUS ENGAGEMENT AND RECONCILIATION
Progress has been made on several resolutions aimed at engaging and empowering our union’s Indigenous members and advancing our work on reconciliation with Indigenous peoples in Canada:
- Creating the USW Indigenous Engagement Guide, a new resource to help local unions engage and build respectful relationships with our Indigenous members and with Indigenous nations and communities.
- Extending the USW Indigenous Engagement Co-ordinators pilot project.
- Expanding our unionism on Turtle Island course across the country.
- Supporting and facilitating the participation of Indigenous Steelworkers from all three districts to participate in the labour movement’s Indigenous rights lobbying of federal and provincial governments.
HEALTH AND SAFETY
The conference adopted multiple resolutions to further the USW’s longstanding role as the leading health and safety union in Canada and to protect and defend our members through our health and safety activism at the national, district and local levels.
Key resolutions included a call from delegates to ramp up the union’s national campaign, Stop the Killing, Enforce the Law, which demands that governments enforce the Westray Law. The law, enacted in 2004 largely as a result of USW advocacy, is intended to hold employers criminally accountable for the health and safety of workers. USW leaders and activists nationwide remain committed to lobbying and demanding accountability from governments, Crown prosecutors, law enforcement and health and safety regulators to implement crucial measures to ensure the Westray Law is enforced.
Resolutions also were adopted to support USW education and health and safety leaders in expanding the union’s groundbreaking campaign, Raising the Bar on Women’s Health and Safety, and advancing overall health and safety activism on behalf of our members, at the national, district and local levels.
EDUCATION
Resolutions were adopted to support and expand the USW’s unmatched member-to-member education programs which promote grassroots activism, solidarity and justice everywhere in our union. Post-conference actions have included increasing facilitator training, updating longstanding courses and expanding newer initiatives to address issues such as mental health in the workplace and women’s health and safety.
EMPOWERING USW WOMEN AND OTHER EQUITY-SEEKING GROUPS
Our work in response to resolutions on these issues includes:
- Expanding the Raising the Bar on Women’s Health and Safety campaign.
- Creating and supporting the USW Women in Industry Network.
- Expertise and support to local unions to develop pay equity plans in response to federal legislation.
- Supporting and empowering the USW National Anti-Racism Committee and creating the USW Steel Pride Working Group.
NEXT GENERATION
Resources and support continue to be provided for multiple initiatives endorsed by delegates to encourage and empower young Steelworkers activists to take on increasingly greater roles in our union, their communities and their governments. The union is committed to support the involvement of younger members in key USW programs including organizing, education, political action, Women of Steel, human rights, health, safety and environment, and all other integral union activities. The union recognizes NextGen members will continue to be leaders in economic, social, gender, racial and equity justice movements consistent with our values to fight for better lives for all working people.
FORESTRY
Led by the USW Wood Council, our union is putting forward a strong, proactive agenda to support forest workers, their families and their communities. Steelworkers continue to lobby the federal government to seek a fair and equitable resolution to the softwood lumber dispute with the U.S. The union also is advocating for the federal and provincial governments to develop a co-ordinated, intergovernmental strategy to reduce the export of raw logs, ban raw log exports from old-growth forests, impose progressively higher taxes on log exports from second-growth forests and provide incentives for the domestic manufacturing of raw logs into finished products. In March 2024 in Victoria, the USW was joined by Unifor and the Public and Private Workers of Canada in jointly hosting an unprecedented summit on the crisis facing British Columbia’s forestry industry. The unparalleled summit drew union leaders, rank-and-file forestry workers, policymakers and researchers to identify and advance measures that must be taken to address the industry crisis.
Our union in Canada is committed to advancing the ambitious policy agenda set out by our grassroots activists at the USW National Policy Conference.