International Fur & Leather Workers Union | |
 Founders of the International Association of Fur Workers of the United States and Canada | |
| Union merger | Amalgamated Meat Cutters (United Food and Commercial Workers) |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1913 |
| Dissolved | 1955 |
| Headquarters | New York City |
| Location | |
Key people | Ben Gold, President |
| Affiliations | AFL, CIO, expelled for communist ties |
The International Fur and Leather Workers Union (IFLWU), was a labor union that represented workers in the fur and leather trades.
The IFLWU was founded in 1913 and affiliated with the American Federation of Labor (AFL).
Radical union organizers, including Communists, played a role in the union from its early years. It became one of the major bases in the labor movement. Irving Howe says that the Communists used "Shock troops, a sort of paramilitary vanguard handy with knives, belts, pikes." [1] [ additional citation(s) needed ]
The most active radical and long-time Communist Ben Gold, was president from 1935 until he was forced out by moderates in the 1940s.
In 1937, the IFLWU left the AFL and joined the new Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), led by John L. Lewis.
In 1948, former CIO general counsel Lee Pressman joined Joseph Forer, a Washington-based attorney, in representing Irving Potash, vice president of the Fur and Leather Workers Union along with four others (Gerhard Eisler, supposedly the top Soviet agent in America; Ferdinand C. Smith, secretary of the National Maritime Union; Charles A. Doyle of the Gas, Coke and Chemical Workers Union, and John Williamson, labor secretary of the Communist Party USA). On May 5, 1948, Pressman and Forer received a preliminary injunction so their defendants might have hearings with examiners unconnected with the investigations and prosecutions by examiners of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. [2]
Between 1949 and 1950, with Cold War tensions rising, the CIO expelled the IFLWU and 10 other unions that it accused of being "communist dominated."
In 1955, the union merged into the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen of North America union.
The Communist Party (CP) and its allies played a role in the United States labor movement, particularly in the 1930s and 1940s, but never succeeded, with rare exceptions, either in bringing the labor movement around to its agenda or in converting their influence in any particular union into membership gains for the Party. The CP has had only negligible influence in labor since its supporters' defeat in internal union political battles in the aftermath of World War II and the CIO's (CIO) expulsion of unions in which the party held the most influence in 1950. The expelled parties were often raided by stronger unions, and most withered away.
Gerhart Eisler was a German politician, editor and publicist. Along with his sister Ruth Fischer, he was a very early member of the Austrian German Communist Party (KPDÖ) and then a prominent member of the Communist Party of Germany during the Weimar Republic.
Lee Pressman was a labor attorney and earlier a US government functionary, publicly alleged in 1948 to have been a spy for Soviet intelligence during the mid-1930s, following his recent departure from Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) as a result of its purge of Communist Party members and fellow travelers. From 1936 to 1948, he represented the CIO and member unions in landmark collective bargaining deals with major corporations including General Motors and U.S. Steel. According to journalist Murray Kempton, anti-communists referred to him as "Comrade Big."
John Jacob Abt was an American lawyer and politician, who spent most of his career as chief counsel to the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) and was a member of the Communist Party and the Soviet spy network "Ware Group" as alleged by Whittaker Chambers.
Nathan Witt, born Nathan Wittowsky, was an American lawyer who is best known as being the Secretary of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) from 1937 to 1940. He resigned from the NLRB after his communist political beliefs were exposed, and he was accused of manipulating the Board's policies to favor his own political leanings. He was also investigated several times in the late 1940s and 1950s for being a spy for the Soviet Union in the 1930s. No evidence of espionage was ever found.
The United Packinghouse Workers of America (UPWA), later the United Packinghouse, Food and Allied Workers, was a labor union that represented workers in the meatpacking industry.
The Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union (OCAW) was a trade union in the United States which existed between 1917 and 1999. At the time of its dissolution and merger, the International represented 80,000 workers and was affiliated with the AFL–CIO.
The National Maritime Union (NMU) was an American labor union founded in May 1937. It affiliated with the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) in July 1937. After a failed merger with a different maritime group in 1988, the union merged with the Seafarers International Union of North America in 2001.
Benjamin Gold (1898–1985) was an American labor leader and Communist Party member who was president of the International Fur and Leather Workers Union (IFLWU) from 1937 to 1955.
Harold I. Cammer was an American lawyer who co-founded the National Lawyers Guild. He was known for his participation in labor law, civil rights, peace and justice issues, and freedom of speech cases; in particular, defending those accused of communist leanings.
The Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) was a federation of unions that organized workers in industrial unions in the United States and Canada from 1935 to 1955. Originally created in 1935 as a committee within the American Federation of Labor (AFL) by John L. Lewis, a leader of the United Mine Workers (UMW), and called the Committee for Industrial Organization. Its name was changed in 1938 when it broke away from the AFL. It focused on organizing unskilled workers, who had been ignored by most of the AFL unions.
Joseph Forer was a 20th-century American attorney who, with partner David Rein, supported Progressive causes, including discriminated communists and African-Americans. Forer was one of the founders of the National Lawyers Guild and its DC chapter. He was also an expert in the "Lost Laws" of Washington, DC, enacted in 1872–1873, that outlawed segregation at business places.
Len De Caux (1899–1991) was a 20th-century labor activist in the United States of America who served as publicity director for the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) and worked to stop passage of the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947.
The first-ever "political action committee" in the United States of America was the Congress of Industrial Organizations – Political Action Committee or CIO-PAC (1943–1955). What distinguished the CIO-PAC from previous political groups was its "open, public operation, soliciting support from non-CIO unionists and from the progressive public. ... Moreover, CIO political operatives would actively participate in intraparty platform, policy, and candidate selection processes, pressing the broad agenda of the industrial union movement."
Ferdinand Smith was a Jamaican-born Communist labor activist. A prominent activist in the United States and the West Indies, Smith co-founded the National Maritime Union with Joseph Curran and M. Hedley Stone. By 1948 he was wanted by the U.S. Immigration Service for deportation, and is remembered as one of the most powerful black labor leaders in U.S. history.
Abram Flaxer (1904-1989) was an American union leader who founded the State, County, and Municipal Workers of America (SCMWA), which merged with the United Federal Workers of America (UFWA) to form the United Federal Workers of America (UFWA), of which he became president.
The United Office and Professional Workers of America (UOPWA) (1937–1950) was a CIO-affiliated union and one of the white-collar unions formed by the CPUSA-breakaway party of Lovestoneites.
Louis Hollander (1893–1980) was a labor union leader who co-founded the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America union (ACW), the US portion of the World ORT, and the American Labor Party (ALP); served as state president of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), and held several executive roles on the AFL–CIO political action committee; in 1948 he joined the CIO mainstream to oppose the candidacy of Henry A. Wallace in favor of incumbent Harry S. Truman.
Roy Hudson, also known as Roy B. Hudson, served on the national executive board of the Communist Party USA and national trade union director and trade union expert.
The Leather Workers' International Union of America (LWU) was a labor union representing workers in the leather industry in the United States and Canada.
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