Jenny Ahn, interviewed on July 20 and 27, 2026.
Interviewed by John Cartwright and Lorne Slotnick
Jenny Ahn, who came to Canada as a child from South Korea, began her union activism when she was a social worker at an agency whose employees were part of Canadian Auto Workers, Local 40, successor to the Canadian Textile and Chemical Workers. She became president of the large composite local after championing better representation for women and workers of colour.
In the 1990s she became the youngest and first woman of colour elected to the National Executive Board of the CAW, now part of Unifor. At CAW and Unifor she was involved in union education and political action, as well as bargaining for retail workers.
In this interview, she discusses her union roles as well as her work with the International Women’s Day Committee, the International Domestic Workers Federation, and the Asian Canadian Labour Alliance.
She is currently executive director of the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations.