Seafarers' International Union | The Canadian Encyclopedia

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Seafarers' International Union

Seafarers' International Union In 1949, supported by the federal government and some union leaders and shipping executives, an unsavoury ex-convict was allowed into Canada to destroy the powerful, communist-dominated Canadian Seamen's Union.

Seafarers' International Union

Seafarers' International Union In 1949, supported by the federal government and some union leaders and shipping executives, an unsavoury ex-convict was allowed into Canada to destroy the powerful, communist-dominated Canadian Seamen's Union. Within a few months, Hal BANKS and the "goons" he brought with him, through beatings, threats and even murder, had replaced the CSU with the American Seafarers' International Union. Although the union was expelled from the CANADIAN LABOUR CONGRESS, its practices condemned by a royal commission, and Banks arrested and forced to flee the country, the SIU remains Canada's dominant seamen's union.