Progressive Workers Movement
Progressive Workers Movement
The Progressive Workers Movement (PWM) was a Maoist political group in Vancouver, British Columbia. It started in 1964, led by Jack Scott, who had recently been expelled from the Communist Party of Canada. PWM published a newspaper called The Progressive Worker and followed far-left, anti-revisionist ideas rooted in communism, Marxism–Leninism, and Maoism. The group supported independent Canadian unions that were not controlled by U.S. unions and worked to help organize workers outside traditional international unions.
PWM never had many members; at its peak, the group had fewer than 100. It helped a breakaway Canadian union, the Canadian Electrical Workers (CEW), try to organize electronic plants in British Columbia. The CEW later merged into the Canadian Association of Industrial Mechanical and Allied Workers (CAIMAW).
In November 1964, the leadership of the British Columbia New Democratic Party began expelling PWM members because of the group’s magazine, The Progressive Worker. Jack Scott, Jerry LeBourdais, and Gene Craven were expelled by December 1964. A December report noted PWM was growing by recruiting from Vancouver’s Chinese-Canadian community and forming links with the Progressive Labor Party in the United States.
In the 1965 federal election, PWM member Jerry LeBourdais ran in Vancouver East but received only 274 votes (about 1.3%). In April 1968,PWM members disrupted a British Columbia Federation of Labour rally and handed out pamphlets calling for a general strike against a new compulsory arbitration law; the rally’s audience applauded the call for militant action.
The final issue of The Progressive Worker appeared in 1970, and PWM dissolved. Some former members later joined the Vancouver Study Group.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 09:35 (CET).