He worked for Canadair from 1954 to 1989 and became a prominent labour activist, serving as president of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAMAW) Local 712 from 1969 to 1989.
[1] Cherry formed a "Canadair Survival Committee" in late 1985, after the government of Canada announced that it was planning to sell the company to a private investor.
Cherry's group sought to ensure that Canadair would remain publicly owned, stay in Montreal, and protect the jobs of its employees.
[3] In September 1986, Cherry argued that a federal contract to maintain CF-18 fighter jets should be given to Canadair rather than to a competing bid led by foreign-owned firms in Manitoba and Ontario.
He said that it was not his intent to promote Quebec's interests at the expense of other provinces and that his primary concern was to ensure the CF-18 technology would remain under Canadian control.
[7] In early 1990, Cherry took part in plans to modernize the manufacturing firm Valmet-Dominion Inc. (a unit of the Finnish company Valmet) and relaunch its corporate office in Montreal.
[10] In the same time period, Cherry appointed a business-labor advisory panel to suggest amendments to Quebec's 1981 law on workers' compensation that some critics believed was overly generous.