Léa Roback

Léa Roback (3 November 1903 – 28 August 2000) was a Canadian trade union organizer, social activist, pacifist, and feminist. She campaigned against exclusion, violence, racism, and injustice. she was the daughter of Polish Jewish immigrants. Her father was a tailor who, along with his wife, Fanny, ran a general store. They were the only Jews in Beauport, the town in which Roback grew up. She spoke Yiddish at home, French with Beauport locals, and English at school. Her family valued reading and the arts. In her youth, she was influenced by her maternal grandmother, an independent woman.

With her family, Roback returned to Montreal in 1915. While working at British American Dyeworks, she became aware of the differences between the various sectors of Montreal society. Her next job was as a cashier at Her Majesty's Theatre. Interested in literature, she saved money to enroll at the University of Grenoble in 1926, On her return from Grenoble, she joined her sister in New York City.

Career In 1929, she went to Berlin to visit her brother Henri, a medical student. She learned the German language, took university courses, and taught English to pay for her classes. developing a strong commitment to Communism. On May 1, 1929, during her time in Berlin, Roback joined the Communist Party of Germany. She felt seduced by the socialists, but she believed they did not put their words into action, hence she shifted her support to Marxism-Leninism. In her 1988 interview with Nicole Lacelle, Roback said that it was during that period that she gained genuine political consciousness. In the fall of 1932, with the Nazi Party steadily gaining power, Roback, a Jew, foreigner, and communist, was left to return to Montreal on the advice of her professors, whereupon she joined the Communist Party of Canada. In 1934, she spent a few months in the Soviet Union with a lover. (Roback married in Europe at some point, but the marriage was annulled.) Roback helped unionize RCA Victor in 1941, where she remained until 1951. She won the first union contract for women in 1943 but did not want to become a union representative or climb up the union power structure.

Roback was a political organizer for the Fred Rose's ultimately successful campaign in the 1943 Cartier federal by-election for the Communist Party.

The Léa Roback Foundation (Fondation Léa Roback) awards scholarships to women residing in Québec who are socially committed and economically disadvantaged.