Name Huguette Plamondon | Died 2010 | |
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Huguette Plamondon (January 6, 1926 - September 29, 2010 in Montréal) was a trade unionist in Quebec, Canada. She served as a vice-president of the Canadian Labour Congress from 1956 until 1988.
Biography
In 1942, she becomes a secretary in a steelworking business. In 1945, at the age of 19, she begins working as a secretary at the Montréal office of the United Packinghouse Workers of America. She takes part in the unionization campaigns for the workers of the meatpacking industry in Montréal.
In 1953, she becomes member of the Montréal Labour Council (Conseil du travail de Montréal), which at that time was affiliated to the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). From 1955 until 1958, she was the president of the Montréal Labour Council, thus becoming the first woman in Canada to lead a major labour organization. In 1956, she participates to the Rassemblement, a short-lived political movement presided by Pierre Dansereau and whose vice-president is Pierre Trudeau.
In 1956, she is elected a vice-president of the Canadian Labour Congress, thus becoming the first woman to achieve a Canada-wide union executive position. She held that office for 32 years, until 1988.
From 1961 until 1966, she is a member of the Quebec Council of Economic Planification (Conseil de planification économique du Québec). In 1973, she is a member of the Economic Council of Canada.
She was vice-president of the New Democratic Party.
She served as an international vice-president of the United Food and Commercial Workers Canada. She was also the president of UFCW Canada local 744P in Quebec. Near the end of her career, she was executive assistant to the director for Canada of the United Food and Commercial Workers.
She was married with Roméo Mathieu, also a trade unionist. She died from a heart attack in 2010, at the age of 84.