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The Saskatchewan Co-operative Wheat Producers Ltd. was incorporated August 25, 1923 under the Companies Act. The founders include A.E. Wilson, W.M. Thrasher, L.C. Brouillette, Geroge F. Edwards, George W. Robertson, R.S. Dundas, W.L. Noyes, A.J. McPhail, J.W. Matthewson, J.A. Maharg, and G. Garfield Wray. The organization was founded to improve the social and economic welfare of farmers and farm families. It was popularly referred to as the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool from its founding and officially changed its name in 1953.

By June 1924, the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool had contracts with 45,725 farmers covering 6,333,000 acres of land. Until its public offering in 1996, the Wheat Pool was a fully co-operative organization, with a central administration in Regina, Saskatchewan and local co-operative or Wheat Pool associations administering daily activities at its country elevators (e.g. taking delivery, handling, and storing grain). To fulfil its mandate of improving the welfare of farmers and farm families, the Wheat Pool also had many subsidiaries in fields such as printing presses, livestock yards, marketing agencies, a flour mill, and farm sales including fertilizer, seed, herbicides, and other chemicals. Subsidiaries included The Western Producer and Modern Press (sold in 2002 to GVIC Communications Inc.), CSP Foods, Dawn Foods Canada, CanAmera Foods, Heartland Livestock Services, PrintWest, AgPro Grain, Poundmaker AgVenture, Pacific Elevators, Westco Fertilizer, IPCO, Robin's Foods, Bioriginal, PhilomBios, Regina Seed Processors, Saskatoon Livestock Sales, and Lakeside Processors.

In 2007, the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool purchased Winnipeg-based Agricore United amd shortly thereafter changed its name to Viterra, Inc.

The Grain Services Union traces its roots back to 1936 when elevator agents and office staff working for the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool formed the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool Employees' Association (SWPEA).

Over the years, SWPEA expanded to include all workers in Saskatchewan Wheat Pool's head office, elevator construction and repair division, terminal elevator offices, livestock division, and publications division.

In 1973, country elevator and construction employees of Manitoba Pool Elevators joined the union, and in 1974 the name was changed to the Grain Services Union.

Other groups of workers also organized to join the GSU: AgPro Grain terminal elevator employees in Saskatoon, Moose Jaw, and St. Boniface (formerly owned by Northern Sales and Elders Grain); AgPro Grain fish farm employees; Hillcrest Farms employees; Advanced Blueprint employees; and country elevator employees of Alberta Wheat Pool.

The Grain Services Union is affiliated to the Saskatchewan Federation of Labour, Alberta Federation of Labour, Manitoba Federation of Labour and was a direct affiliate to the Canadian Labour Congress until 1994. In that year, members voted to approve affiliating to the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (Canadian Area), although the connection to the CLC remains.