The Congress of Democratic Trade Unions (French: Centrale des syndicats démocratiques or CSD) is a national trade union centre in Quebec formed on 8 June 1972 in response to a split within the Confederation of National Trade Unions Confédération des syndicats nationaux, CSN). It is the smallest of the four labour centres in Quebec, with about 4% (62,770 members) of the union membership in the province.
The split was led by dissident members of the CSN executive Paul-Émile Dalpé, Jacques Dion and Amédée Daigle, referred to as the "Three Ds", who said they wanted a more democratic union body and one which would be politically neutral, as distinct from the political militancy of the CSN. Paul-Émile Dalpé was the first president of the CSD, Dion was treasurer and Daigle was director of services. Jean-Paul Hétu was vice-president and Réal Labelle was secretary.
Dalpé was succeeded as president by Jean-Paul Hétu who held office until 1989, when Claude Gingras became president.
Famous quotes containing the words congress, democratic, trade and/or unions:
“Our decision about energy will test the character of the American people and the ability of the President and the Congress to govern this nation. This difficult effort will be the “moral equivalent of war,” except that we will be uniting our efforts to build and not to destroy.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“People think they have taken quite an extraordinarily bold step forward when they have rid themselves of belief in hereditary monarchy and swear by the democratic republic. In reality, however, the state is nothing but a machine for the oppression of one class by another, and indeed in the democratic republic no less than in the monarchy.”
—Friedrich Engels (1820–1895)
“Though I have locked my gate on them
I pity all the young,
I know what devil’s trade they learn
From those they live among,
Their drink, their pitch and toss by day,
Their robbery by night....”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“The newly-formed clothing unions are ready to welcome her; but woman shrinks back from organization, Heaven knows why! It is perhaps because in organization one find the truest freedom, and woman has been a slave too long to know what freedom means.”
—Katharine Pearson Woods (1853–1923)