Solidarity between American and Canadian members of the USW fueled decades of prosperity in International Falls, Minn., a city of about 5,500 situated right on the border.
Canadians traveled across the bridge over the Rainy River and joined their U.S. counterparts for shifts at the paper mill, now owned by PCA, that’s still central to the local economy.
Americans from International Falls and Canadians from neighboring Fort Frances also began marrying each other. They shopped in each other’s stores, attended youth hockey games in both countries and served in volunteer fire departments providing cross-border mutual aid. They forged a community that transcended political lines, making life better for all.
“If you have to fight a fire, you draw in everybody you can,” noted Tim Wegner, a longtime member of Local 00159 who serves as organized labor’s representative on the Minnesota Forest Resources Council and as an elected city councilor in International Falls.
Ties like these are not only a hallmark of the USW but one of the great success stories in trade unionism, with USW members in both countries successfully working together to create jobs, strengthen supply chains, create safer workplaces, ensure fair trade and build stronger communities.
“USW members have the same needs and goals regardless of whether they live in the northernmost reaches of Canada or the southernmost parts of the United States,” observed International President David McCall, who started out at Local 6787 in Burns Harbor, Ind.
“All workers want fair wages, decent benefits, safer workplaces and a voice on the job,” he said. “In every battle, we’re stronger together.”
The USW’s founders recognized this from the very beginning, said International Secretary-Treasurer Myles Sullivan, noting that Canadians and Americans both served on the Steel Workers Organizing Committee in the 1930s.
“It’s always important to celebrate our solidarity. That’s especially true right now, a time when political forces seek to divide us,” added Sullivan, who worked in Ontario’s gold mines as a member of Local 2020, referring to the danger posed by Donald Trump’s unprovoked trade war with Canada.
Fueling Linked Economies
USW members and other workers are some of the most effective diplomats the two countries have, building goodwill on the shop floor and across workplaces while producing the goods that keep our economies inextricably linked.
When USW members in Lackawanna, N.Y., negotiated their first contract with Welded Tube several years ago, they received assistance from Local 8328 at the company’s Concord, Ontario, complex.
“Whatever they asked for, we supplied,” recalled Local 8328 President John Manfre, noting some of his co-workers had served stints in the Lackawanna plant and got to know their counterparts there.
When Welded Tube locked out the Canadian local two days before Christmas last year, the USW members in New York prepared to come to their aid. Fortunately, the workers in Concord broke the lockout and won a fair contract within weeks.
The fight for fair wages and security links these union members, just as their work anchors cross-country supply chains serving multiple industries.
Workers in Lackawanna, for example, manufacture casings with raw material provided by USW members at Cleveland-Cliffs in Canada. The casings then go to a Welded Tube facility in Welland, Ontario, for further processing and ultimately to customers in the United States, Manfre explained.
These efforts contribute to the billions worth of goods that traverse the border every day.
Building Power and Lifting Others
USW members strategize, provide mutual support and build unity through initiatives serving workers in both countries.
U.S. and Canadian members of the USW’s Emergency Response Team train together. Participants in NextGen and Women of Steel attend periodic conferences culminating in solidarity actions and civic projects. USW members from both countries shape the union’s direction at constitutional conventions.
And workers share best practices and lessons learned through health and safety conferences and forums like the Health Care Workers Council.
“I think we all share the same issues,” explained Jackie Anklam, president of Local 9899 and a District 1 co-coordinator for the Health Care Workers Council. “We learn from each other.”
During the pandemic, council members kept each other up to date about safety protocols, vaccine development and union advocacy with labor and health agencies, recalled Anklam, an environmental services technician at MyMichigan Medical Center in Saginaw.
Other issues of mutual interest include short-staffing, the incursion of private equity and for-profit owners in health care and the need to keep growing the union’s health care sector.
The USW’s success in building worker power across national lines continues to inspire and guide our global outreach. We help workers in Liberia, Mexico and numerous other countries organize, bargain and advocate for a brighter future.
In the same vein, our union played a crucial role in shaping the trilateral trade pact that’s known in America as the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement and in Canada as the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement.
The USMCA/CUSMA safeguards jobs in America and Canada by requiring employers in Mexico to respect labor rights and treat workers more fairly.
“While USW members deliver essential goods and services, we also model and support the democratic unionism that lifts up workers in many other parts of the world,” noted Marty Warren, the National Director for Canada. “That’s transformative work.”
Opposing Devastating Tariffs
If they’re applied strategically and appropriately, tariffs help to level the playing field for workers who face unfair competition from other countries.
But Trump’s decision to slap across-the-board tariffs on Canada—and his incendiary rhetoric about making Canada the 51st state—only poses irreparable harm.
“Canada is a trusted trade partner that plays by the rules,” stressed International Vice President at Large Roxanne Brown, who oversees the union’s legislative, policy and political initiatives. “Our economies support and reinforce one another. Pain inflicted on one country is pain shared by the other.”
The tariffs—inviting retaliatory action by Canada—threaten to raise prices, disrupt production and kill jobs in both countries.
Wegner fears a trade war will raise prices on the electricity, natural gas and other items the PCA mill purchases from Canada, sending the 115-year-old mill’s production costs soaring.
“The International Falls mill would be one of the worst affected paper mills in the U.S.,” he said, adding, “In the paper industry, the profit margin is very thin. That would pretty much wipe ours out.”
He also worries about the ripple effect on both sides of the border. Though the number of Canadians working in the mill dwindled in recent years because of other job opportunities in Fort Frances, inhabitants of the two towns share a rich legacy and bright future together.
“For Valentine’s Day, my wife and I went to dinner over there,” Wegner said, referring to the Canadian side.
Manfre said some of Welded Tube’s American customers also have begun to express concern about tariff-related price increases.
“In the end, it’s the consumers that are going to pay the price,” he said. “That’s the absurdity of this.”