Profession union organizer Children Jan Reimer Died March 29, 2011 | Role Political figure Name Neil Reimer Succeeded by Grant Notley | |
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Preceded by Floyd Albin Johnson (CCF) Political party Alberta New Democratic Party Other political
affiliations federal New Democratic Party Party Alberta New Democratic Party | ||
Neil Reimer (July 3, 1921 – March 29, 2011) was an activist, trade unionist and former political figure in Canada.
After leaving the University of Saskatchewan in 1942 at the age of 19, Reimer went to work at the Consumers Co-operative Refinery, in Regina, Saskatchewan. He immediately joined a Congress of Industrial Organizations union organizing drive at the refinery. In 1950, he became an organizer for the CIO's Oil Workers International Union and was sent to Alberta to organize workers in that province's booming petrochemical industry.
In 1951, Reimer became the Canadian director of the OWIU (which subsequently became the Oil, Chemical & Atomic Workers Union) and would be the national director of the union and its successors until he retired in 1982. Under his stewardship, the union grew from less than 1,000 members to more than 20,000 by 1961. In the 1981 union gained independence from its American parent to become the Energy and Chemical Workers Union and, in 1992, merged with two other unions to become the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada.
Reimer was elected as a vice-president of the Canadian Congress of Labour in the 1950s and remained on the executive of it and its successor, the Canadian Labour Congress, until 1974.
Reimer became president of the newly founded New Democratic Party of Alberta in 1962 and was elected its first leader in 1963. The NDP's predecessor, the Alberta CCF, lost its remaining two seats in the 1959 provincial election and received only 4% of the vote. In 1961, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation and the Canadian Labour Congress founded the New Democratic Party. Under Reimer's leadership the NDP gained in popular vote to 9% in the 1963 election and just short of 16% in the 1967 election but was unable to win any seats in either contest. Reimer retired as NDP leader in 1968 relinquishing the position to Grant Notley.
Reimer remained Canadian director of the OCAW throughout the 1960s and 1970s and became national director of the Energy and Chemical Workers Union when it was formed out of the OCAW in 1981. He retired from the union's leadership in 1984.
After retiring from the union, Reimer was active as the president and then later the secretary treasurer of the Alberta Council on Aging.
His daughter, Janice Rhea Reimer, served as mayor of Edmonton from 1989 to 1995.