Casgrain, Roback fought for woman's suffrage in Quebec in 1936. In the same year, the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union dispatched Rose Pesotta, a veteran union organizer from New York, to establish the ILGWU in Montreal. She was aided by Roback. The latter was uniquely helpful in uniting the garment workers owing to her ability to speak Yiddish, French, and English, and ultimately helped organize 5,000 garment workers who had been on a three-week strike in 1937. 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 Fred Rose's ultimately successful campaign in the 1943 Cartier by-election. After steadily distancing herself from the CPC, Roback left the party in 1958 after the Soviet invasion of Hungary. In 1960, she became a member and played an active role in the organization "Voice of Women" (La Voix des Femmes in Montreal) alongside Madeleine Parent, Thérèse Casgrain, and Simonne Monet-Chartrand. She denounced the Vietnam War and apartheid in South Africa, campaigned against the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and was a proponent of free access to a quality education. A feminist, she fought to obtain the right to vote for the right to abortion and access to contraception. Roback also fought for the residents of Saint-Henri to receive decent housing. At the age of 83 and in the pouring rain, she participated in the women's march for pay equity. In 1985, she became an honorary member of the Canadian Institute for Research on Women. She died in Côte-des-Neiges in 2000, becoming a Knight (Chevalier) of the National Order of Quebec in the same year. Legacy Her memory is perpetuated by the work of the Lea Roback Foundation, created in 1993, which provides scholarships to socially-committed women. "Le centre Léa-Roback", a research center in Montreal for social inequalities, is also named in her honour, as is the Maison Parent-Roback, originally situated in Old Montreal and now located in the Park-Extension district. Sophie Bissonnette made a documentary on Roback's life in 1991. Two streets were named in her honour in the 2000s: Rue Léa-Roback in the Saint-Henri district of Montreal, and a street of the same name in Beauport, where she spent time in her youth. The Léa Roback Foundation (Fondation Léa