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The Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE; French: Syndicat canadien de la fonction publique [SCFP]) is a Canadian trade union serving the public sector – although it has in recent years organized workplaces in the non-profit and para-public sector as well. CUPE is the largest union in Canada, representing some 800,000^[1] workers in health care, education, municipalities, libraries, universities, social services, public utilities, transportation, emergency services and airlines. Over 60 per cent of CUPE’s members are women, and almost a third are part-time workers. CUPE is affiliated with the Canadian Labour Congress and is its greatest financial contributor.

Although CUPE was formed in 1963 as a merger of NUPE and NUPSE, efforts to create a national union for municipal workers began with Patrick (Pat) Lenihan in the 1930’s. Lenihan had immigrated from Ireland and became president of the Trades and Labour Congress (today the CLC) Local 37, representing the outside workers of the City of Calgary (today CUPE Local 37). Lenihan initially organized the Canadian Federation of Civic Employees at the TLC convention in 1953, which renamed itself at its own convention in 1955 as National Union of Public Employees and elected Garnet Shire, president of Local 79 in Toronto (today CUPE Local 79), as its National President.

At the time, there were two umbrella national trade union organizations – the Trades and Labour Congress (TLC) and the Canadian Congress of Labour (CCL). The two merged in 1956. A national union of municipal employees already existed under the CCL – called the National Union of Public Service Employees (NUPSE), founded in 1952, and comprising Quebec and Manitoba locals, of which Local 500 (Winnipeg) was a large and powerful trade union (today CUPE Local 500).

The newly created CLC, having merged the TLC and CCL urged Stan Little of NUPSE to merge with TLC’s NUPE (which broadly represented a merger of East and West in both instances). Pat Linehan passionately campaigned for unification, and he found a kindred spirit in Stan Little – the two met formally to begin talks in 1956. Linehan would later say it took him 25 years to deliver the CUPE baby.

Six years later, their efforts culminated in a joint convention in 1963. CUPE was formed in 1963 in a fashion resembling industrial unionism by merging the National Union of Public Employees (NUPE) and the National Union of Public Service Employees (NUPSE). Stan Little, who had previously been the president of NUPSE, was elected its first president. Having led public sector unionism through a period where almost no workers had the right to strike, Little has been credited with bringing public sector unions “from collective begging to collective bargaining.” By the time of Little’s retirement, CUPE had already grown to 210,000 members and had eclipsed United Steelworkers as the largest affiliate to the Canadian Labour Congress.

Little was followed in 1975 by Grace Hartman, a feminist activist who was the first woman to lead a major labour union in North America. Hartman led CUPE to involve itself in broader struggles for social justice and equality, and emphasized the role of social unionism, as opposed to the more conservative business unionism practised by many North American unions. She was arrested for leading Ontario hospital workers in defying a back-to-work order from the Ontario Supreme Court in 1981 and sentenced to 45 days in jail. She retired in 1983.

Hartman’s successor as president was Jeff Rose, a Toronto city worker. Rose’s tenure was marked by membership growth from 294,000 to 407,000 members (largely through organizing), a strengthening of CUPE’s infrastructure and rank-and-file skills, and his outspoken opposition to Brian Mulroney-era wage restraint, free trade, the GST, privatization, deregulation, and cuts to public services. Under Rose’s leadership, CUPE was particularly effective in improving pay and working conditions for women.^{[citation needed]} He stepped down in 1991 after eight years, becoming deputy minister of intergovernmental affairs for the Ontario NDP government.

In 1991, Judy Darcy followed Rose as the president of CUPE. She was an opponent of privatization, two-tier health care, and free trade agreements. Darcy was committed to the union’s involvement in broader social issues, and under her tenure CUPE strongly attacked the invasion of Iraq, condemned Canada’s involvement in ballistic missile defence, and spoke out in favour of same-sex marriage.^{[citation needed]} Darcy stepped down in 2003 after 12 years as president, and was replaced by Paul Moist.

On November 4, 2022, more than 55,000 CUPE education workers began an indefinite strike against the Ontario government.^[2] Ontario Premier Doug Ford attempted to stop the strike by using the notwithstanding clause, which was criticized by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as “wrong and inappropriate.”^[3]

Following the October 7 attacks, Fred Hahn, general vice president of CUPE, tweeted: “Palestine is rising, long live the resistance.”^[4] Eighty Jewish members of CUPE took Hahn and CUPE Ontario to the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal, saying they felt “isolated, unwelcome, scared, silenced, discriminated against, threatened and harassed” by the way their union had responded since the October 7 attack.^[4]

In August 2024, National President Mark Hancock said that Hahn had been asked to respond to a request from the union’s national executive board that he resign due to a social media video post by Hahn that Hancock called “antisemitic.”^[4] Hahn, for his part, said that he was refusing to step down.^[4] A spokesman of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) opined that CUPE should remove Hahn.^[4] Carrie Silverberg, one of the people who signed on to the human-rights complaint against CUPE, called Hahn’s video “blatantly anti-Semitic”.^[4] Ontario’s labour minister, Dave Piccini, confronted Hahn and asked him to stop being antisemitic, and Premier Doug Ford said on 21 August that Hahn’s post was “bigoted”.^[4][5] Hancock said that if Hahn does not resign on his own, “that’ll be new ground again for CUPE and me as a national president. I will review options available to me.”^[6]

In August 2025 CUPE began leading a strike of flight attendants against Air Canada. In September 2025, voting on the tentative agreement reached to end this strike concluded with CUPE members employed with Air Canada overwhelmingly rejecting it.^[7] With 94.6% of CUPE Air Canada employees participating the vote, 99.1% would in fact reject the agreement.^[8][9]

On 6 September 2025, Montreal-based CUPE Local 301 members voted to approve job action which includes the option of indefinite strikes for 6,600 City of Montreal employees.^[10]

CUPE has an extremely decentralized structure, in which each local elects its own executive, sets its own dues structure, conducts its own bargaining and strike votes, and sends delegates to division and national conventions to form overarching policy. Advocates of this system claim that it places the power in the grassroots where it belongs; critics believe that it makes it difficult for it to organize concerted action and leaves the union highly balkanized with policies and strategies varying widely from local to local and sector to sector. This decentralized structure is often described as “CUPE’s greatest strength and its greatest weakness.” This political decentralization is mirrored by an organizational decentralization. Although CUPE has a national headquarters in Ottawa, it is relatively small—the vast majority of its staff are scattered across over 70 offices across the country.

CUPE locals are affiliated directly to the National body, and affiliation in Provincial CUPE bodies is optional. CUPE National provides locals with support and assistance through National Representatives, who are employees of CUPE National. National Representatives are assigned to specific locals to assist the democratically elected officers of CUPE locals in various aspects of the operation and functioning of the local union. They primarily assist in more complex issues, such as conducting Grievance Arbitrations, bargaining, disability/accommodation issues, human rights, preparation of legal documents, local elections and education. National Representatives also have authority to place a CUPE local under administration, pursuant to the CUPE Constitution, which effectively means that the Representative runs the local for a brief period of time in an extraordinary circumstance and suspends the locally elected officers, usually only in very serious cases of fraud or gross incompetence or misconduct. In addition to servicing National Representatives, CUPE National employs Research Representatives and Legal & Legislative Representatives, who provide research and legal support to locals through their servicing representatives.

Nationally, there are two full-time political positions: the National President (currently Mark Hancock) and the National Secretary-Treasurer (currently Candace Rennick).

CUPE divisions are the political voice of members in their respective provinces, and an integral part of CUPE. Chartered through the national union, each division advocates and campaigns at the provincial level for legislative, policy and political change in the interests of CUPE members and the communities they serve. Each provincial division is led by a democratically elected president, secretary-treasurer and executive board, who are directed by members at annual conventions (biennial in Quebec). Provincial organizations do not provide any servicing or support to the locals on specific operational items, focusing primarily on provincial lobbying, policy development and union education.

CUPE’s employees have organized into two main bargaining units. The Canadian Staff Union (CSU) is the larger of the groups. It represents National Representatives and specialist staff in Area and Region Offices across the 10 Regions of CUPE. In 2008, CSU absorbed the Administrative and Technical Staff Union which represented about 60 administrative and technical staff at the Ottawa National Office. The Canadian Office and Professional Employees union (COPE) Local 491 represents support staff workers in the national, regional and area offices of CUPE. Additionally, a handful of CUPE Locals have dedicated CUPE staff working in their own offices.

• 1963–1975: Stan Little
• 1975–1983: Grace Hartman
• 1983–1991: Jeff Rose
• 1991–2003: Judy Darcy
• 2003–2015: Paul Moist
• 2015–present: Mark Hancock

• 1963–1967: Robert P. Rintoul
• 1967–1975: Grace Hartman
• 1975–1985: Kealey Cummings
• 1985–1989: Jean-Claude Laniel
• 1989–1991: Judy Darcy
• 1991–2001: Geraldine McGuire
• 2001–2011: Claude Généreux
• 2011–2021: Charles Fleury
• 2021–present: Candace Rennick

There is a Canadian Union of Public Employees fond at Library and Archives Canada.^[11] The archival reference number is R5440, former archival reference number MG28-I234.^[12] The fond covers the date range 1919 to 2009. It contains 105.46 meters of textual records, along with a number of other media records.

• Official website
• Canadian Union of Public Employees – Web Archive created by the University of Toronto Libraries