The Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE; ) is a Canadian trade union serving the public sector; although, in recent years it has organized workplaces in the non-profit and para-public sector as well. CUPE is the largest union in Canada. As of 2025, it represented 800,000 workers in health care, education, municipalities, libraries, universities, social services, public utilities, transportation, emergency services, and airlines. More than 60% 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.
History
1952-1963 (formation) Efforts to create a national union for municipal workers began with Patrick (Pat) Lenihan in the 1930's. Lenihan immigrated to North America from Ireland and, after some time as a member of the Industrial Workers of the World (the Wobblies), became president of the Trades and Labour Congress (TLC, today the CLC) Local 37, representing the City of Calgary's outside workers (today CUPE Local 37).
Lenihan shared his goal of a national union to represent civic employees (akin to industrial unionism) with other representatives at the 1952 TLC convention. There wasn't a national union at the time, instead individual locals would receive charters directly from the central labour organization. TLC liked Lenihan's idea and, over the next year, he organized 22,000 civic and hospital workers across Canada into the Canadian Federation of Civic Employees. In 1955, the union officially changed its name to the National Union of Public Employees (NUPE) and elected Garnet Shire, president of Local 79 in Toronto (today CUPE Local 79), as its president.
In 1956, TLC merged with the other Canadian labour congress, the Canadian Congress of Labour (CCL), to form the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC).
The National Union of Public Service Employees (NUPSE) already existed under the CCL and was competing with NUPE. NUSPE had fewer members but a longer history, having been founded in 1952. In 1956, Lenihan, who'd become NUPE's president in 1956, and some NUPSE officials suggested that the CLC form one big union for Canadian public sector workers. The CLC agreed and a merger committee was stuck.
Seven years later, their efforts culminated in a joint convention in 1963 to launch the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE). 78,317 members of 483 locals were represented by the new union, making it the second largest union in the CLC and the largest Canadian union affiliated with it. Stan Little, the previous national director of NUPSE, became CUPE's 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."
In a telegram of congratulations, the United Steelworkers of America told the newly-elected executive: “CUPE has a big and challenging task—to extend the concept of unionism and the benefits of collective bargaining to all public employees. Even if that means they outstrip us some day as Canada’s largest union, we wish them well.”
1963-1975 (Little) In its first year, CUPE chartered 30 new locals, increasing its membership by 8%. Between 1963 and 2004, CUPE was involved in 1,502 strikes, representing 6.5% of all 23,115 work stoppages in Canada in the same period.
In 1966, CUPE won the right to represent 9,000 Hydro-Québec workers, one of its most important organizing victories. They beat out Quebec's Confederation of National Trade Unions and gained certification to represent the office, trades, and technical staff at Hydro-Québec. In 1967, the local went on strike for better working conditions, higher salaries, and province-wide parity for office and technical employees. The strike lasted for six weeks. Using a strategy of rotating strikes across Quebec, management personnel needed to rush around to maintain services. The workers won the strike along with recognition for their use of rotating strikes, which weren't previously known outside of Quebec.
In 1967, it won another important victory, gaining the affiliation of CBC employees. At its third national convention, which was held the same year, CUPE established a National Defence Fund designed to provide strike pay.
In 1968, in a brief to the Royal Commission on the Status of Women, CUPE suggested "amending and expanding various aspects of federal law to improve conditions and remuneration for working women." This included broadening conditions which required equal pay and improving day care and maternity leave.
In 1969, CUPE had almost 130,000 members, about one third of which were women. The union's success attracting new members throughout the 1960s relied on its ability to win substantial increases at the bargaining table. CUPE won its members better working conditions, benefits, and higher salaries.
By the time of Little's retirement in 1975, CUPE had already grown to 210,000 members and had eclipsed United Steelworkers of America as the largest affiliate to the Canadian Labour Congress.
1975-1983 (Hartman) Little was followed 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. She emphasized the role of social unionism, as opposed to the more conservative business unionism practised by many North American unions.
On October 14th, 1976, more than 100,000 CUPE members joined one million other Canadians in a one-day general strike, the largest in Canadian history. The strike was protesting the federal government's Anti-Inflation Board. Its legislation set up wage and price controls and CUPE calculated that in a 15-month period, this removed $23 million from its member's income.
In 1978, CUPE closed its national accounts with CIBC after it and three other major Canadian banks failed to stop loaning money to apartheid South Africa.
In 1980, CUPE set up a national task force to address issues in nursing homes, such as poor safety regulations and the lack of requirement for private homes' owners' to publicly disclose costs, income, and profits.
In 1981, Hartman and a few other senior CUPE members were arrested for leading Ontario hospital workers in defying a back-to-work order from the Ontario Supreme Court, and Hartman was sentenced to 45 days in jail. The strike was caused by Ontario's conservative government which had replaced hospital worker's right to strike with binding arbitration in 1965. Resentment towards the binding arbitration grew as it forced workers to accept wage increases that were below par with the increasing cost of living. In 1980, when the previous contract expired, hospital workers were demanding a raise plus cost-of-living increase. The Ontario Hospital Association (OHA) made a counter offer that was well below what workers were asking, and 91% of them rejected it. OHA announced it would seek binding arbitration and CUPE, feeling that this would force the rejected agreement onto them, began intensive lobbying and public demonstrations. This came to a head in 1981 when CUPE members at 51 of 66 Ontario hospitals walked off the job in an eight-day strike. As well as wage increases, the strike sought to improve hospital's staffing levels and quality of care. During the strike, 22 members were charged with contempt for defying a Supreme Court of Ontario order to return to work. Some months later, Hartman, Lucie Nicholson, and Ray Arsenault faced jail sentences for contempt relating to the same ruling.
When Hartman retired in 1983, CUPE's membership had reached 294,633.
1983-1991 (Rose) Hartman's successor as president was Jeff Rose, former president of Local 79 in Toronto. Rose became the first Jewish-Canadian elected as National President. 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.
He stepped down in 1991 after eight years, becoming deputy minister of intergovernmental affairs for the Ontario NDP government.
1991-2003 (Darcy) In 1991, Judy Darcy followed Rose as the president of CUPE. She therefore became the second woman and second Jewish-Canadian to lead the union. 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. Darcy stepped down in 2003 after 12 years as president, and was replaced by Paul Moist.
2003-2025 (Moist) Paul Moist's tenure (2003-2015) was characterized by deploying the strength of CUPE toward various causes aimed at improving the lives of all Canadians. He committed funds and support to the NDP party and it achieved some of its greatest election results ever, with Jack Layton forming the official opposition. Moist was an authority on the CLC board also, and initiated and supported various causes which later bore fruit with CLC campaigns, such as the implementation of national pharmacare and improvements to the Canada Pension Plan and Employment Insurance. Known as an inspirational and powerful speaker, Moist was able to energize his membership on strikes across the country and during his tenure CUPE grew significantly, employed more staff and began acquiring assets in offices and meeting spaces rather than renting. He forged strong international alliances and frequently spoke out against "right to work" laws being floated by the Conservative government in power during his tenure. Shortly after the Liberal Party of Canada was elected to government with Justin Trudeau as prime minister, Moist stepped down and was replaced by Mark Hancock, the incumbent president.
Internal organization 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.