National President, UFCW Canada
International Executive Vice President, UFCW International
For more than three decades, Wayne E. Hanley has been an activist and a champion of workers’ rights and is National President of UFCW Canada, Canada’s largest private-sector union with more than 250,000 members. Hanley is also one of the three International Executive Vice Presidents of the International UFCW, and a member of the UFCW International Executive Committee led by International President Hansen.
Hanley became a rank-and-file UFCW Canada member and activist in 1976 as a customer service clerk at a London, Ontario supermarket. Over the next eight years he went on to become a steward and a member of his local union’s executive board. In 1984, after graduating from the University of Toronto with a Bachelor of Science degree, Wayne Hanley joined the staff at UFCW Canada Local 175 where over the next six years he served as an organizer, servicing representative, pay equity coordinator and grievance chairperson.
In 1990, Wayne Hanley was appointed Region Director; in 1992 was elected Secretary-Treasurer; and in 1999 elected President of UFCW Canada Local 175 which under his leadership grew to become North America’s largest single local, with over 47,000 members.
In April 2006, Hanley was elected as National President of UFCW Canada by the UFCW Canada National Council, and as President of the National Council in 2007. Under Hanley’s direction, the UFCW Canada National Office provides strategic orientation and support to UFCW Canada’s local union efforts in servicing and training the membership, in growing the union, in reaching out to new Canadians, and in extending the campaign for labour rights and better workplace protections through political and lobbying efforts, as well as through the courts.
National President Wayne Hanley has also reinforced UFCW Canada’s decade-long commitment to protecting the rights and safety of both domestic and migrant agriculture workers in Canada through a network of ten UFCW Canada Agriculture Workers Alliance support centres across Canada.
The impact of globalization and migrant labour has also meant looking outward, so Hanley has also initiated UFCW Canada dialogue and working agreements with leaders in the international community.
In addition to his UFCW Canada and UFCW International roles, Wayne Hanley also sits as a trustee on numerous pension, health and welfare plans, and on the Board of Directors of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society of Canada.