Fred Dowling
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" As long as there is one worker who is exploited or mistreated,
our work is not complete."
Fred Dowling's history with labor began in 1935, when he moved from his native Canada to Chicago, and began working in the hide cellar of a large meatpacking plant, at the Armour Corporation. It was his experiences on this job, which he said years later helped him learn "what it's like to work in hell," that turned Dowling into a lifelong advocate for trade unions.
When Dowling returned to Canada in 1937, he became involved with the fledgling Canadian CIO movement. After a series of successful union campaigns, including the United Auto Workers campaign against General Motors, Dowling began work with the Packinghouse Workers Organizing Committee. He immediately began organizing meatpacking plants across Canada. When the United Packinghouse Workers of America was founded in 1943, Dowling was unanimously elected Canadian Director. Dowling held this position until his retirement in 1972, seven years before the Packinghouse Workers merged with the Retail Clerks to form the UFCW.
Throughout his 35 year career, Dowling headed many successful labor campaigns. During World War II, he maneuvered the Canadian Federal government and the "Big Three" Canadian meatpacking companies into establishing a National Master Agreement system. This system allowed for unprecedented power for the union. After the war, the federal government turned jurisdiction for labour relations back over to the provinces. In response to this, Dowling engineered a nation-wide strike of packinghouse workers in 1947. This move not only secured the master agreement system, it also transformed the young union into one of the most militant in Canadian labour history.
Dowling's organizing skills were not restricted to the meatpacking industry. Throughout his career, he also worked heavily in the food processing industry. His most successful organizing campaign within the food processing sector occurred in the late 1960's when he began the massive organization of the Atlantic fishery industry.
Fred Dowling experienced unprecedented success during his career as a Canadian labour activist. His experiences early in his life inspired him to dedicate his life to the trade union movement, turning him into a giant of the Canadian labour movement. In the last years of his life, Dowling summed up the purpose of his career, saying; "As long as there is one worker who is exploited or mistreated, our work is not complete."
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