Take It Easy, But Take It

-ILA 38-79 San Francisco Longshore  - ILA 38-123 Portland Wheat/Cereal ILA 38-12 Seattle Longshore ILA 38 Sacramento Wheat/Cereal - ILA 38-78 Portland General Longshore - Save 28 Innocent ILA Men from Portland during the 1934 West Coast waterfront strike ILA 38-78-A Portland Super Cargos & Checkers

The IFAWA has a very complicated history. I wanted to share some of my collection with you as I continue to map the CIO's radical existence over the course of 20 short years. For a well done history of the United Fisherman's Union - CIO  & The International Fisherman & Allied Workers of America - CIO... visit this link here to the Waterfront Workers History Project at the University of Washington. Between 1948 and 1950, the CIO expelled 11 unions who refused to remove their communists and radicals from leadership. The last 3 were all West Coast Maritime unions. The IFAWA was one of them. Having already pushed the idea of affiliating with the ILWU to their membership, the merger was almost immediate after expulsion. By my count the IFAWA existed as it's own union from 1939 till 1950. The United Fisherman's Union was the CIO's first foray into the fishing industry and existed from 1937-1939, largely still as a craft union, but set the stage for a lar...

IWA Local 25 CIO (Port Ludlow, Washington) - Lumber & Sawmill Workers IWA Local 34 CIO -  Lumber & Sawmill Workers (District 3) IWA Local 38 CIO (Shelton, Washington) -  Lumber & Sawmill Workers (District 3) IWA Local 46 CIO (Bellingham, Washington) - Lumber & Sawmill Workers (Local Union) IWA Local 2-46 CIO (Bellingham, Washington)  - Lumber & Sawmill Workers (Local Union) IWA Local 100 CIO - Lumber & Sawmill Workers IWA Local 101 CIO (Everett, Washington) -  Lumber & Sawmill Workers IWA Local 116 CIO (North Bend, Oregon) - Lumber & Sawmill Workers (Local Union) IWA Local 140 CIO IWA CIO-CCL IWA-CIO "Organize" Longview  United Woodworkers Union Local 37 CIO

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

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

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

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.

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. 

Workers who contributed to the C.I.O. PAC received these pins. By this time C.I.O. leadership was firmly entrenched in the Roosevelt / Democratic Party machine, with several top C.I.O. leaders sitting on government councils and boards. The bureaucracy established the necessary apparatus to make business unionism viable again, paving the way for the 1955 AFL-CIO merger.

This unions history is illusive. I have read that locals may have merged into United Packinghouse Workers of America C.I.O. briefly, but left because of communist influence in UPWA.

International Woodworkers of America C.I.O. - Organize Longview, WA union pin.