Aaron Roland Mosher

Mosher, Aaron Roland

Aaron Roland Mosher, trade unionist (b in Halifax County, NS 10 May 1881; d at Ottawa 26 Sept 1959). In 1907 Mosher led Halifax freight-shed employees on strike. In 1908, when the Canadian Brotherhood of Railway Employees (CBRE) was founded, Mosher was elected its first president, a position he held until 1952. Under his leadership CBRE became the largest Canadian transport-workers' union. As a national industrial union, it embraced employees who were outside the jurisdiction of the craft railway brotherhoods. CBRE briefly affiliated with the Trades and Labor Congress but was expelled at the insistence of a competing international union. Mosher became Canada's foremost exponent of national unionism. In 1927 he became president of the new All-Canadian Congress of Labour. When it was succeeded by the Canadian Congress of Labour (1940), Mosher retained the presidency. During WWII, as a labour representative on several government committees, he favoured collective-bargaining legislation and opposed wartime wage controls.