Paul Moist
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Paul Moist is national president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, Canada's largest trade union.
Until elected to lead CUPE's 540,000 members in October 2003, Moist served for 10 years as the president of CUPE Local 500, representing Winnipeg municipal workers. He also served for six years as president of CUPE Manitoba.
Under Moist's leadership, CUPE has focused on branding itself as a community union, advocating strongly for the new deal for cities, and playing key roles in the defense of public health care, the fight for public, quality, child care, and in resisting attempts to privatize water and electricity services across the country.
Moist has served as co-chair of Manitoba Premier Gary Doer's Economic Advisory Council and vice-chair of Manitoba's Public Insurance Corporation. He has also served his community as treasurer of the United Way and as a director of the Winnipeg Library Foundation and the Misericordia Health Centre. He is a vice-president of the Canadian Labour Congress.
Moist has been a CUPE member since he was a teenager, working first as a lifeguard, then as a greenhouse attendant for the City of Winnipeg. He was elected to his local executive after university and worked as a CUPE staff representative from 1983 to 1993.
Moist is CUPE's fifth national president and the first from the West. He has been active in the New Democratic Party. He has a bachelor of arts degree from the University of Manitoba where he studied Canadian history and politics.
