Interviewee: Dave Werlin
Year: 2003, 2005
Location: Edmonton
Profile: A giant of the Alberta labour movement, Dave Werlin was a blue-collar worker turned union official and four-decade Communist Party militant who became president of the Alberta Federation of Labour from 1983 to 1989. Later, he served as the first president of the Alberta Labour History Institute.
Born and raised on a family farm in Elfros, Saskatchewan by progressive, activist parents, Werlin became an outside worker in Calgary, and an activist in CUPE Local 37, where he became a member in 1956. Then, as a Calgary Transit bus driver, he was active in ATU 583. He returned to outside city work, this time in Vancouver, where he became recording secretary and business agent for Local 1004 of CUPE. He then became regional vice-president on the CUPE National Executive Board in 1979, working out of Calgary again.
While AFL leadership had for years been viewed as moderate, the membership by 1983 were becoming more militant as employers took advantage of a recession to roll back hard-won gains. Werlin’s reputation as a tireless defender of workers won him the AFL leadership and he inspired Alberta workers to form solidarity coalitions and use strikes, boycotts, and rallies to fight back against predatory employers. His leadership proved crucial during a strike wave in 1986 and a campaign to fund massive fines levied against UNA in 1988. Under his leadership, the AFL also funded unemployment action centres. He remained active in the union movement and in progressive organizations in his post-AFL life.
Keywords: Alberta Labour History Institute; Bus driver; Business agent; Calgary Transit; Communist Party of Canada; Outside worker, Calgary and Vancouver; Solidarity coalitions; Unemployment action centres.
Transcript: Download PDF
See also: Alberta Federation of Labour; Amalgamated Transit Union; Canadian Union of Public Employees; Friends of Medicare; Summer of ’86 in Alberta; United Nurses of Alberta