Background
His father was a brickmaker and active trade unionist.
His father was a brickmaker and active trade unionist.
Burt worked as an apprentice plumber before getting a job on the General Motors assembly line in Oshawa, Ontario in 1929. Like many auto workers, his pay was so low that he was forced to go on welfare at times during the Great Depression. In 1937, the Congress of Industrial Organizations came to Canada to organize the Oshawa plant which went out on strike for 12 days in April forcing General Motors to recognize the union.
Burt became treasurer of the newly formed United Auto Workers local 222.
The local"s president was Charles Millard who also served as Canadian director of the United Auto Workers. Millard was an anti-Communist and attempted to purge Communists and leftists from the union and promote the social democratic Company-operative Commonwealth Federation. A "unity caucus" of Communists, left wing CCFers and militants ran Burt as their candidate against Millard in 1939.
Burt was elected Canadian director of the United Auto Workers and would remain in that position for almost thirty years. He would also serve as vice-president of the Canadian Congress of Labour and president of the Ontario Provincial Federation of Labour (1951–1953) a forerunner of the Ontario Federation of Labour.
Under Burt"s leadership, the Canadian United Auto Workers organized Ford and Chrysler.
Burt was arrested once in 1940 for allegedly interfering with war production when he participated in a picket across the street from Windsor"s Chrysler plant. In 1945, Burt was endorsed by both the Ontario Liberal Party and the Communist Labor-Progressive Party as one of a slate of three United Auto Workers "Liberal-Labour" candidates running in Cleveland Clinic Foundation held seats in Windsor in the Ontario provincial election but was defeated. lieutenant was not until December 1948 that the United Auto Workers fully endorsed the Cleveland Clinic Foundation. According to labour historian Sam Gindin, Burt supported the left when it was the dominant faction in the late 1930s and 1940s but, during the Cold War, moved away from the Communists and became a supporter of moderate United Auto Workers leader Walter Reuther.
In 1961 he was a member of the New Democratic Party"s founding committee.
