These two big unions recently announced a merger and should soon represent over 300,000 employees. The new organization, which has yet to settle on a name, will be the largest private sector union. In terms of size, it will be just below the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE). (Ref. 120609)
The CEP and CAT started negotiating in the summer of 2011. The unions’ leaders and members negotiated for a long time, and the idea of a merger made its way. This summer, all CAW workers voted in favor of the merger, and the CEP’s members followed massively in October. CEP treasurer Gaëtan Menard said the new entity would try to capture the spirit of the Occupy movement and student protests that gripped Quebec last summer. The two unions thought that they would be stronger together. Their
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