Toronto – April 24, 2013 – UFCW Canada organizers and executive staff recently participated in a Strategic Organizing Meeting in Toronto to discuss strategies aimed at strengthening Canada's best retail union and reaching out to more Canadian workers to help them join the union.

Leading organizers from across the country shared ideas on effective unionization strategies and described the specific approaches used in successful organizing drives.

Early in the morning meeting attendees heard from guest speaker Kendra Coulter, a professor at Brock University's Centre for Labour Studies, who reported on labour union organizing and the retail industry in Canada. The participants also reviewed current and future UFCW Canada campaigns.

Throughout the all-day meeting, Local Union and National Office organizing coordinators shared key lessons from unionization drives in a diverse array of workplaces – from grocery stores to clothing retailers – in order to develop a comprehensive set of best practices that can be used to enhance UFCW Canada's organizing efforts moving forward.  

"In our quest to end workplace unfairness and help more workers rise above the poverty line with good jobs that respect employee rights, we have to identify successful unionization methods and learn from our challenges so that we can be more effective in welcoming new members," says UFCW Canada National President Wayne Hanley. "This was a very productive gathering as it provided us with several ideas that we can use to help more workers gain a strong voice and a better future by joining UFCW Canada."