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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.
Between the mid-1800s and mid-1900s, the Midwestern United States supplied nearly all the nation's beef and pork. The companies supplying this meat were known as the "Big Four" of meatpacking. The companies that made up the "Big Four" were Armour, Swift, Wilson, and Cudahy. Butchers at "Big Four" stockyard plants in Chicago, Kansas City, and Omaha formed the backbone of the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen (AMCBW). [1] The AMCBW was chartered by the American Federation of Labor in 1897, and was the original labor union to represent retail butchers and packinghouse workers. In the early years of the twentieth century the AMCBW experienced some success, however the union was very divided and unorganized, and lost two major strikes in 1904 and 1921–1922. [1] After experiencing failure in the nationwide strike of 1921–1922, the AMCBW lost many members. After the passage of the National Industrial Recovery Act in 1933, the AMCBW started gaining back more members, however it was not as successful as new packinghouse unions of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). [1]
The Packinghouse Workers Organizing Committee (PWOC) was chartered by the CIO, and established on October 24, 1937. [2] The PWOC organized locals throughout the nation with the greatest concentrations in the Midwestern and Great Plains states. Like many unions in the CIO, the PWOC tried to organize all workers in a given plant regardless of skill or trade (see industrial unionism). Unlike the AMCBW, the PWOC recruited not only butchers, but also masses of unskilled packinghouse laborers. [1] The formation of the PWOC gave direction and coherence to a previously fragmented movement. [3] The PWOC provided more organization and structure, thus allowing union activists from different plants and different cities to coordinate movements. [3] The PWOC was very successful in recruiting African American workers, who dominated the packinghouses in Chicago and Kansas City. [1] It was also successful in recruiting rural white workers, and succeeded in overcoming ethnic and racial antagonisms that had plagued similar, previous efforts. Active in both black and white neighborhoods, the PWOC functioned as an important social and cultural institution in addition to its primary role as a union. [4] In 1943 the PWOC was officially chartered as the UPWA.
In October 1943, the PWOC officially became the UPWA. [5] Its headquarters was located in Chicago. [4] The UPWA's rival union was the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen, an older AFL craft union. The Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen was a conservative union, whereas the UPWA was a more radical, left wing union. In the 1940s, the UPWA won nationwide contracts with companies including all members of the "Big Four" of meatpacking: Armour, Swift, Wilson, and Cudahy. Contracts for members of the UPWA were generally more stable than those of the AMCBW. [6] They also offered better working conditions. Outside of labor rights, the Chicago local of the UPWA was a major driving force behind the Back of the Yards Neighborhood Council founded in Chicago in 1939, the first example of Saul Alinsky's method of community organizing. [7]
The UPWA was committed to interracial cooperation, and starting in 1949 the union began pursuing anti-discrimination activities. [8] In 1950, the UPWA created an Anti-Discrimination Department, dedicated to ending racial discrimination in meat packing plants and working against segregation in local communities. [9] The three goals of this department were: to break down all-white plants, to end discriminatory practice in communities, and to facilitate work with other civil-rights community organizations, such as the NAACP. [6] In the 1950s and 1960s, the UPWA was at the forefront of union support for the Civil Rights Movement and was a strong ally of Martin Luther King Jr. Historians regard the UPWA's civil rights activity as a prime example of social unionism.
During the 1950s, the UPWA made workplace equality for women a central goal. Though the idea never gained as much prominence as the fight for racial equality, the UPWA was still able to make a difference for women in the workplace. Ending men's and women's wage differentials was the focus of the UPWA. [6] Ending discrimination against pregnant women workers was another important focus. As a result of the UPWA's work, pregnant women were able to receive up to one full year of unpaid leave and up to eight weeks of half-paid leave, under the union's sick-leave provisions. [6]
The meatpacking industry restructured in the post World War II years. The "Big Four" lost their dominance, and a new "Big Three" took power. IBP, ConAgra, and Cargill were the companies that made up the "Big Three." By establishing plants in areas closer to animal populations, and by introducing new technologies that required less skill, the "Big Three" drove many older companies out of business. [1] Packing plants represented by the UPWA closed in large numbers. In 1968, the UPWA and AMCBW joined forces, and UPWA dissolved into the Amalgamated Meat Cutters.
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Craft unionism refers to a model of trade unionism in which workers are organised based on the particular craft or trade in which they work. It contrasts with industrial unionism, in which all workers in the same industry are organized into the same union, regardless of differences in skill.
William Z. Foster was a radical American labor organizer and Communist politician, whose career included serving as General Secretary of the Communist Party USA from 1945 to 1957. He was previously a member of the Socialist Party of America and the Industrial Workers of the World, leading the drive to organize packinghouse industry workers during World War I and the steel strike of 1919.
The meat-packing industry handles the slaughtering, processing, packaging, and distribution of meat from animals such as cattle, pigs, sheep and other livestock. Poultry is generally not included. This greater part of the entire meat industry is primarily focused on producing meat for human consumption, but it also yields a variety of by-products including hides, dried blood, protein meals such as meat & bone meal, and, through the process of rendering, fats.
The Union Stock Yard & Transit Co., or The Yards, was the meatpacking district in Chicago for more than a century, starting in 1865. The district was operated by a group of railroad companies that acquired marshland and turned it into a centralized processing area. By the 1890s, the railroad capital behind the Union Stockyards was Vanderbilt money. The Union Stockyards operated in the New City community area for 106 years, helping Chicago become known as the "hog butcher for the world," the center of the American meatpacking industry for decades. The yards became inspiration for literature and social reform.
New City is one of Chicago's 77 official community areas, located on the southwest side of the city in the South Side district. It contains the neighborhoods of Canaryville and Back of the Yards.
The Amalgamated Meat Cutters (AMC), officially the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen of North America, 1897–1979, was a labor union that represented retail and packinghouse workers. In 1979, the AMCBW merged with the Retail Clerks International Union to form the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW)
The International Fur and Leather Workers Union (IFLWU), was a labor union that represented workers in the fur and leather trades.
Rowena Moore was an African-American union and civic activist, and founder of the Malcolm X Memorial Foundation in Omaha, Nebraska. She led the effort to have the Malcolm X House Site recognized for its association with the life of the national civil-rights leader. It was listed on both the National Register of Historic Places and the Nebraska register of historic sites.
Addie L. Wyatt was a leader in the United States Labor movement and a civil rights activist. Wyatt is known for being the first African-American woman elected international vice president of a major labor union, the Amalgamated Meat Cutters Union. Wyatt began her career in the union in the early 1950s and advanced in leadership. In 1975, with the politician Barbara Jordan, she was the first African-American woman named by Time magazine as Person of the Year.
The United Public Workers of America (1946–1952) was an American labor union representing federal, state, county, and local government employees. The union challenged the constitutionality of the Hatch Act of 1939, which prohibited federal executive branch employees from engaging in politics. In United Public Workers of America v. Mitchell, 330 U.S. 75 (1947), the Supreme Court of the United States upheld the Hatch Act, finding that its infringement on the Constitutional rights was outweighed by the need to end political corruption. The union's leadership was Communist, and in a famous purge the union was ejected from its parent trade union federation, the Congress of Industrial Organizations, in 1950.
The Englewood race riot, or Peoria Street riot, was one of many post-World War II race riots in Chicago, Illinois that took place in November 1949.
Huguette Plamondon was a trade unionist in Quebec, Canada. A trailblazer and leader in the Quebec, Canadian and international labour movements, she dedicated the bulk of her efforts to representing the United Packinghouse Workers of America and then the United Food and Commercial Workers, after the UPWA merged with the Amalgamated Meat Cutters in 1979 to create the UFCW. She also served as a vice-president of the Canadian Labour Congress from 1956 until 1988.
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.
Romeo Mathieu was a Canadian trade unionist, progressive political activist, and leading solidarity builder for the Quebec labour movement.
Fred Dowling (1902–1982) was a Canadian trade unionist who is best known for leading the effort to organize meatpacking workers in Canada during the late 1930s and early 1940s. He was a founding leader of the United Packinghouse Workers of America (UPWA), and served the union as international vice-president and Canadian director for nearly 30 years.
The Canadian Food and Allied Workers (CFAW) was a Canadian meatpacking labour union which existed from 1968 until 1979. It was created as a result of a merger between Canadian locals of the Amalgamated Meat Cutters (AMC) and the United Packinghouse Workers of America (UPWA). In 1979, it merged with the Retail Clerks International Union (RCIU) along with its American counterpart to form the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW).
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.
The Leather Workers' International Union of America (LWU) was a labor union representing workers in the leather industry in the United States and Canada.
Dennis Lane was an American labor union leader.
Roger Horowitz is a New York-born business, technology, and labor historian. He is an expert on food history, and has written about meat production and consumption in the United States. He is the director of the Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society at the Hagley Museum and Library where he manages programs encouraging the use of Hagley's research collections in business, political, and social history. There, he also develops and organizes annual academic conferences, public lectures, and seminar series. He also works as an adjunct professor at the University of Delaware Department of History as well as an independent consultant on oral history.
