Paul Swaity was born in Sudbury, Ontario, December 5, 1921, and grew up in Selkirk, Manitoba. He dropped out of school at age 14 and took a job in the Manitoba Rolling Mills where his father worked. While still a teenager, he helped organize that mill. He resumed his education in 1941 and earned a B.A. degree in labor economics from the University of Manitoba in 1946. He got a job on the staff of the University of Wisconsin School for Workers and then became assistant director of the St. Louis Labor Education Project, a program designed to help prepare black workers for factory employment. While working at this job, he became acquainted with several TWUA staff members and was hired by the TWUA in 1949. He served for a time as an organizer in the Midwest and the South and was then added to the Union's Education Department staff. In 1956 he was appointed temporary Canadian Director and in 1959 was made TWUA Education Director and administrative assistant to President William Pollock. In 1964 he was elected to the Executive Council and appointed director of the entire South, which was consolidated into one region that year. In 1968 he returned to TWUA headquarters as an assistant to Pollock and as Organizing Director. Today he still holds a seat on the ACTWU Executive Board and is ACTWU Organizing Director.
