Friday, October 30, 2026

A World of Shared Values: Why WOW Matters to CLAC

Andrew Regnerus, WOW Board Vice-President and International Representative

CLAC is fiercely independent. For almost 75 years, your union has been careful about alliances with other union organizations. Our founders were aware that affiliation often meant compromise on principle.

Canada’s mainline labour movement adopted mostly Marxist economic principles in labour relations. CLAC’s roots lie with Abraham Kuyper, a European contemporary of Karl Marx. CLAC’s focus on social dialogue and integrated negotiation as the best way to advance worker rights would have been offside in the Marxist camp. Since 1952, CLAC has been independent of union confederacies in Canada.

We are, however, members of WOW. The World Organisation of Workers is made up of over 100 unions on all continents (except Antarctica). It’s a collection of values-based trade unions where CLAC feels a strong sense of belonging. It includes northern European unions that were influential and helpful in CLAC’s founding in Canada. The Dutch CNV and Denmark’s KRIFA are key among those unions.

WOW members share values based on social principles that have evolved from the Judeo-Christian thought tradition. Some are more overt about the principles than others, but all believe in dignity and fairness and take a progressive approach to labour and management relations.

Last week, WOW’s world board convened for its annual in-person meeting in Spain. I attended, along with Wayne Prins, CLAC’s executive director. As WOW’s board chair, Wayne leads these meetings. The agenda might not be too inspirational; it includes things like financials, budgets, operational rules, reports from the continental confederacies and the like. What is distinctive and important is that all members hold similar visions of justice and human flourishing in their trade union activity. We also made plans for our annual delegation to the ILO International Labour Organization (ILO), a UN body which hears labour concerns and makes recommendations on broad principles for global adoption. Wayne and I will both attend its session in Geneva in June, along with a few more people from WOW’s board.

Part of the board’s mandate includes coordinating aid to trade unions in developing economies. CLAC is proud to do our share, given that we received much support from unions in this group in the early and mid-1950s. In 2026, CLAC provided aid to three unions in West Africa to help with organizing efforts. We also funded training projects in Bangladesh and the Philippines.

Don’t worry, members! This isn’t funded by your dues. The CLAC Foundation, our charitable arm, raises funds and decides on domestic and international worker-centric projects to support. The Foundation maintains its own financial records, separate from CLAC’s ledger, and is governed independently of CLAC’s organizational structure.

In my next blog, I’ll write about WOW’s two-day seminar on the gender gap, funded by the European Union. To make the most of participants’ travel, WOW’s World Board meetings are held alongside the seminar. Stay tuned.

A World of Shared Values: Why WOW Matters to CLAC

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