Strength in Numbers

The 1955 National Defence Employees Association Convention (NDEA) failed to make a decision on joining the greater "House of Labour." They did, nonetheless, advise the National Executive to study the matter. Who could possibly argue the logic of banding together with fellow workers all across Canada to fight more effectively for the rights of all brothers and sisters? A decision so simple, but one that would take 11 years to bring to fruition.

The next year's merger of the Trades and Labour Congress with the Canadian Congress of Labour to create the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) seemed the perfect time to jump on the bandwagon. In the midst of all the euphoria though, a membership raid on a Defence base by a CLC affiliate cooled the ardour somewhat. Undeterred, President Jim Wyllie and Secretary-Treasurer Ken Green kept pushing for an affiliation, but another problem developed over the matter of NDEA tradesmen with dual memberships in their respective trade unions. Time dragged on!

NDEA Conventions in 1958, 1961 and 1964 directed the executive to seek a closer relationship with the CLC. However, members now became concerned that affiliation with the CLC meant "support for one political party," an idea to which they were not ready to commit.

The big event finally arrived in March 1966 when NDEA held a referendum, and over 90 per cent of members supported affiliation with the CLC. But all the hurdles had not quite been vanquished. Within months, NDEA was to become the Union of National Defence Employees. Yet another approval had to be garnered. Fortuitously, reassurances of respect for political neutrality convinced the UNDE founding convention to continue affiliation with the CLC. The Defence union had finally found a home in the greater labour movement.