Take It Easy, But Take It

"We, the United Packinghouse Workers, realize that the struggle to better our working and living conditions is in vain unless we are united to protect ourselves collectively against the organized forces of the employer. We, therefore, form an organization which unites all workers in our industry on an industrial basis with rank and file control regardless of craft, age, sex, nationality, race, color, creed or political beliefs consistent with democratic processes, and we pledge ourselves to pursue at all times a relentless and aggressive struggle to advance our interests. We recognize that our industry is composed of workers of all nationalities, of many races, of different creeds and political opinions. In the past, these differences have been used to divide us and one group has been set against another by those who would prevent our unifying. We have organized by overcoming these divisive influences and by recognizing that our movement must be big enough to encompass a...

"Vote UFWA C.I.O." - United Furniture Workers of America C.I.O. - Union Pin

"We, the shipyard workers, will be able best to achieve our aims as an integral part of the working class only by combining our collective strength to defend the interests of all the workers in the industry. We must at all times maintain strong unity for the achievement of a higher standard of living, and guard all gains won by standing ever alert against any encroachment on the part of the employers of the industry. Recognizing that craft unionism, as practiced in the past, has been proved during the course of history to be both ineffective and dangerous to the interests of the workers. The Industrial Union of Marine and Shipbuilding Workers of America advocates and practices the program and tactics of militant industrial unionism, based on the principle of One Industry - One Union. The Industrial Union of Marine and Shipbuilding Workers of America calls for the united front of all workers in the industry, regardless of creed, color, nationality, religion, sex or politic...

One year contract between Royal Typewriter Co., Inc (Hartford, Connecticut) & United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America Local 265 C.I.O. for the year 1943.

"Over She Goes! Halted by a bombardment of rocks, police ducked and watched as a crowd of demonstrators pushed over the automobile of a working employee Monday at the CIO-struck Fisher Body Plant in Cleveland. A rock can be seen flying over the head of a ducking policeman in the center of the picture and those round things at his feet are not marbles. Associated Press Photo 7/31/39"

"THE TRUTH ABOUT SPAIN by Rudolph Rocker If there is any event that can bring about a rediscovery of inner strength on the part of organized labor and the libertarian elements of the world, it is the grand struggle against Fascism now being waged in Spain. After the unresisting defeat of the labor movement in Germany the effect of the heroic battle of the Spanish workers, peasants and intellectuals against the Fascist bandits is that of a refreshing thunderstorm. It is the first time since Fascism made it's appearance in Europe that the entire population of a country offered such a spirited resistance to imminent danger. That is why the example of these struggles is international in its significance, far transcending in scope the frontiers of one country. The desperate struggle is the common cause of all movements that do not want to fall under the bloody yoke of Fascism. Yet one must single out the surpassing promptness of action shown by the C.N.T. [ Confede...

1947 Pamphlet issued by FTA-CIO addressing the tactics of HUAC, who would use the sensationalism of anti-communism and "reds" in the capitalist press to discredit union organizing and the CIO. The pamphlet asks "Who is unAmerican?" and discredits members of the committee who in Congress have voted against the right of American serviceman to vote overseas and against the Fair Employment Practice Commission (FEPC) that would have banned discrimination in Federal employment and wartime industries for African-Americans and other minority workers. "FRONT FOR THE BOSSES That [same] fall of 1938, the unAmerican committee heard testimony against Harry Bridges, head of the CIO Longshoremen and warehousemen Union. Chief witness was one Harper Knowles. Harper Knowles swore bridges was a "red," should be deported. This is what Knowles did not tell the committee about himself: 1. Knowles was executive secretary of the Associated Farmers, Inc...

International Union of Mine, Mill & Smelter Workers C.I.O. side by side with their predecessors the Western Federation of Miners - Union Pins 

"Within a year after the general strike [1934 San Francisco General strike], not a single member of the ILA in San Francisco was on relief - an hitherto unheard of situation. The Maritime Federation of the Pacific Coast was organized, to provide a central body through which all maritime unions could cooperate in mutual assistance. The second great strike, occurring in the winter of 1936-1937, was primarily occasioned by the need of the members of the seamen's unions, who had not benefitted commensurately in 1934 and desired to raise their pay scales and working conditions to comparable equality with shore workers. The strike actually started as a lockout, with the employers presenting a stubborn front against any improvements and deliberately closing the port. In the end the seamen won a reasonable victory, but the longshoremen, who went out with them, took slight losses in certain respects. An outstanding feature of the 1936-37 strike, which lasted 99 days, was t...

In 1937, Harry Bridges was named West Coast director of the C.I.O. in exchange for the West Coast longshoremen joining the C.I.O. The International Longshoremen's Association Pacific Coast District joined the CIO just months before they broke off from the ILA and chartered as the International Longshoremen's & Warehousemen's Union C.I.O.  This pamphlet, advocating Industrial Unionism, comes out of Harry Bridges West Coast C.I.O. headquarters the year the ILWU was founded. This pamphlet holds the AFL leadership to account for their hypocritical stance on Industrial Unionism.

United Railroad Workers of America C.I.O. - 1949-1951 Contract with the Pennsylvania Railroad Company

" MEET THE SSEU This is our union - The Social Service Employees Union, more familiarly known as the SSEU. Elevator operators, case workers, group workers, clerks, fund-raisers, janitors, research workers, maids, and others - we are all members of SSEU because we have a common aim in life. We are a division of the United Office & Professional Workers of America. And we have decided that working together in the union is the best way to win job security, higher pay, better working and living conditions, and improved standards of social service to the community. OUR GOALS These are our goals: -To advance and protect the economic interests of the  employees of private social and non-profit agencies. - To further the interests of organized labor. - To promote an adequate welfare program, and to  advance standards of service. IT'S A RANK AND FILE UNION SSEU is a rank-and-file union, run by the membership. The union starts in ...

"Dearborn, Michigan - Strikers of the Oil Workers International Union Local 456 C.I.O. picket the Dearborn Wyoming bulk station at the Socony Vacuum Oil Co. Credit Line: Acme  9/20/45"

United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing & Allied Workers of America C.I.O. - Union Pin

Agreement Between Various Steamship Companies and the National Maritime Union of America C.I.O. Two year agreement spanning 1941-1943 for unlicensed seamen. Two sections in here stood out to me, the first regarding a ship's crew performing longshoremen's work, the other is about baking bread.  "Article I Section 19. LONGSHORE WORK BY CREW. In those outports where there are no regular longshoremen available, members of the crew may be required to drive winches for handling cargo, or may be required to handle cargo.  Borsch work performed during their regular working hours, they shall be paid, in addition to their regular monthly wages, at a rate of $0.70 per hour; and for such work performed during overtime hours they shall be paid at one and one-half times the overtime rate. The phrase "regular working hours" means men on regular straight time and is not restricted to men on sea watches. This section shall not be so construed as to be applicabl...

"The CIO is a people's movement, a people's movement for security, for jobs, for civil rights and peace. It speaks for all the working men and women of America, negro and white. It does not ask questions of race and color of its members or the people it aids. The CIO fights to bring the benefits of industrial organization to all working people. The CIO does this job in the only way it can be done - by organizing all the workers, excluding none, discriminating against none. That is why the CIO is the strongest force for progress in America today. That is why the CIO will not rest until all the working men and women of our country have a measure of economic security, until they have the assurance of peace, until they all enjoy the equal rights and liberties of American citizenship." This is a very brittle pamphlet and I went a bit to far trying to get this scan. Will get the rest of the pages up soon.

American Communications Association C.I.O. - 1941 Union Dues Pins ACA may count themselves as one of the 11 unions whose memberships refused to kick their radicals and communists out of leadership after the passage of Taft-Hartley, and were expelled from the C.I.O. These were telegraphists and radio operators both on land and sea. Many were radio operators on American Merchant Marine vessels.

"PARTY BUILDING IN THE NORTHWEST by Louis Sass, Organization Secretary, Northwest District In the Northwest the objective political conditions for the building of a mass Communist Party are extremely favorable. The struggle against reaction in Washington and Oregon has attracted large sections of the population to the progressive movement. The Washington Commonwealth Federation is broadening out more and more to include organizations and people holding various views on some political questions, but united on the immediate objective of defeating reaction and preserving and extending the much-curtailed democratic rights of the people. Labor rackateering, complete lack of democracy in unions dominated by the notorious Dave Beck, have created a genuine desire on the part of the majority of the members of the A.F.L. to do away with these practices and unite with the C.I.O. to represent a solid labor front against the lumber barons and Chamber of Commerce. The growth of the...

Late comers to the C.I.O., the Communication Workers of America were founded in 1947 and formally affiliated with the CIO in 1949. They are one of the few CIO unions to remain today largely the same as they were before the AFL-CIO merger in name and organization. 

"Everett, Massachusetts - Here is a striking view of tear gas routing pickets and strike sympathizers in the seaman's strike here. Note effigy hanging to outside telephone pole of an employment agency official that was strung up. Credit Line: Acme 5/2/1939"

"Almost from the very day that the fur workers first organized themselves into a union to fight for better working conditions, the bosses hired gangsters to smash the union. They sent their agents to disrupt it from within. They attacked the union through injunctions and court cases. They slandered and besmirched the union through the big-business controlled press. And as is their usual practice, they singled out trustworthy and militant leaders of the workers for frame-ups and persecutions - men in whom the membership had the greatest faith, leaders whose entire lives were devoted to serving the membership. But the union survived and grew, despite violence and gangsters and lockouts of employers. Why was it able to survive attacks as fierce as any ever aimed at a labor organization in the United States? Who were these men who could not be threatened, bribed, or slugged into submission? The history of the I.L.F.W.U. answers these questions. We give here only a few...