Desmond McGrath

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Father Desmond (Des) McGrath is a Catholic priest, and trade union organizer in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. He was a candidate for the New Democratic Party in the 2004 federal election.

In the late 1960s, McGrath's parish consisted mostly of fishermen. He became concerned with their plight. Fishermen at that time were getting just two-and-a-half cents a pound for their catch, and lived off credit supplied by merchants, rarely having a season that enabled them to climb out of debt. McGrath felt that the only way for fishermen to improve their situation was if they formed a union. McGrath and St. John's lawyer Richard Cashin created the Fish, Food and Allied Workers Union. The union today represents not only fishing people, but plant workers and many others and, with over 20,000 members, is the largest private-sector union in Newfoundland.

In the late 1980s, McGrath started setting up adult education centres across the province, which provided key retraining when the cod fishery collapsed a few years later.