Labor Archives of Washington: Union Collections

The Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen of North America (AMC) was a labor union that represented meatpackers and butchers in Chicago. The group was chartered by the American Federation of Labor (AFL) in 1897 by AFL president Samuel Gompers. The AMC is most famous for a strike it held in 1904 where 18,000 workers left their posts on July 12 out of a demand for higher wages. The strike escalated when union members assaulted replacement cattle workers. Police were called to protect the cattle workers, whose involvement spurred a riot involving 4,000 union members. The union members were eventually defeated and signed a contract with meatpacking company president J. Ogden Armour on September 6, 1904. These riots are referenced in Upton Sinclair's novel, The Jungle. The AMC eventually merged with other unions, such as the International Fur and Leather Workers Union, the National Agriculture Workers Union, and the Packinghouse Workers of America. The group exists now as the United Food and Commerical Workers (UFCW) after a merger with the AMCBW in 1979.

Brown and Bigelow, Co. was established in 1896 by Herbert Bigelow and Hiram Brown. The company earned its fortune selling calenders, most famously of pin-up girls and prints by American painters such as Norman Rockwell and Cassius Marcellus Coolidge. In 1927, Brown and Bigelow began printing playing cards and eventually bought the rights to the Hoyle brand.

Founded in 1992, the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance (APALA), AFL-CIO, is the first and only national organization of Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) workers, primarily union members, and allies advancing worker, immigrant and civil rights. Since its founding, APALA has played an advocacy role around workplace issues of the 660,000 AAPI union members, serving as the bridge between the broader labor movement and the AAPI community. A constituency organization of the the AFL-CIO, APALA has more than 20 chapters and pre-chapters and a national office in Washington, D.C.

Among its activities, APALA promotes political education and voter registration programs among AAPIs, and runs trainings to help empower and recruit AAPIs into leadership roles within the labor movement and APA community. APALA seeks to defend and advocate for the civil and human rights of AAPIs, immigrants, and all people of color, and continues to create ties with international labor organizations, especially in the Asia-Pacific Rim.
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Organizational records and ephemera of the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial affiliate organization the Asian Pacific Labor Alliance, Seattle Chapter. The collection includes materials relating to the founding and operation of APALA Seattle, as well as T-Shirts, award plaques, posters, and ephemera. Some national level APALA materials are included, and often list local chapter updates and activity reports, including the Seattle chapter. A major activity of the Seattle chapter is its annual fundraising banquet. The Seattle chapter has origins in the Asian American/Pacific Islander labor activist communities of Seattle that predate the founding of the national APALA in 1992.

The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers was founded in St. Louis, Missouri in 1890, when a group of electrical workers got together and chartered the National Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 5221 under the leadership of its first president, Henry Miller. Local 217 of Seattle, Washington was established in 1901 and ordered defunct in 1908. For six years, dissenting forces within the union caused a split, with each side electing its own officers. The AFL ultimately deemed the McNulty-Collins faction as the legitimate brotherhood. In 1914, the IBEW Local 46 was formed in Seattle with a membership of 250 men of various occupations: inside wiremen, marine wiremen, radio workers and telephone operators that worked in shipyards, industrial areas, uptown Seattle and its vicinity. Over the years the departments of the IBEW grew to include Sound and Communication, Residential, Marine, HVAC, Electronics, Motor Shop, Neon Sign and Maintenance. Current Local 46 jurisdiction includes King, Kitsap, Jefferson and Clallam Counties. Today, Local 46 is composed of over 3,500 members in a variety of craft units.

Historical Note

The first longshore union in Seattle was founded on June 12, 1886 as the Stevedores, Longshoremen and Riggers Union. In 1900, Seattle longshore workers formed the Seattle Longshoremen Mutual Benefit Association which was affiliated with the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) and the American Federation of Labor. This local became ILA, Local 163. In 1903, James Madsen organized another union representing Seattle longshoremen, Seattle International Longshoremen, Marine and Transport Workers' Association, Local 486. This union failed to gain substantial members, and veteran longshoremen created another union representing Seattle longshoremen, the ILMTA Local 552. The WCLU and the AFL tried to amalgamate these two unions but the conflict between the parties continued. Between 1904 and 1907, Seattle longshore workers were split into these two competing unions, ILA Local 552 and Local 1 of the Pacific Coast Federation of Longshoremen of the Pacific. The two groups reunited in 1909 as local 38-12 of the ILA. In 1915, the West Coast Employers’ Association established the Federation of Waterfront Employers’ Unions to drive workers away from the ILA. During this time, the ILA also came into competition with the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and worked to drive out radicalism from its ranks.

In 1916, members of the ILA went on strike to demand high wages and an end to the open shop system. This was the first coast-wide longshore strike on the West Coast, as thousands of longshore workers from Bellingham to San Diego walked off the job. A tentative agreement was reached that was approved by ILA locals in California but rejected by Seattle and Tacoma. Despite not having coast-wide agreement, longshore workers in San Francisco returned to work, causing the strike to crumble. The 1916 strike became a major defeat for the ILA, as the union lost control of hiring halls and waterfront employers began a campaign to drive out the union’s remaining presence.

In the aftermath of the 1916 strike, Waterfront Employers Association (WEA) under the leadership of Frank Foisie created their own hiring halls, known as “fink halls,” that discriminated against union members and Black workers. The use of Black workers as scabs during the 1916 strike, who were subsequently fired, led ILA 38-12 to become the first integrated longshore local on the Pacific coast. During this time, the IWW grew in popularity on the waterfront and gradually took control of the ILA. The shortage of workers on the waterfront caused by World War I allowed the ILA to retake control of the hiring hall. After the war, workers in local 38-12 took part in the 1919 Seattle General Strike and refused to load weapons to be sent to the Russian White Army against the Bolsheviks. The failure of the Seattle General Strike, however, caused the IWW to decline amidst increased repression, and the WEA was able to reinstitute fink halls after another failed strike in Seattle in 1920. The ILA’s presence on the waterfront entered a decade-long decline, so that by 1929 there were only 24 members left in local 38-12.

As the ILA declined in the 1920’s, the US Communist Party (CPUSA) began an intervention into waterfront labor organizing. CPUSA originally sought to unite all waterfront workers into a “red union,” the Maritime Workers Industrial Union (MWIU) but pivoted in 1933 towards a strategy of rebuilding the ILA. CPUSA and former MWIU members, including Harry Bridges, joined the ILA and formed the Albion Hall Group in San Francisco whose mouthpiece, the Waterfront Worker , called for and publicized labor actions.

Pressure from the Albion Hall Group caused conservative ILA leadership to adopt bolder demands, including control over hiring halls, higher wages, and coast-wide bargaining. After being rejected by employers, ILA members on the West Coast voted to strike in February 1934. The strike was delayed following the creation of a government mediation board by Franklin Roosevelt, but the strike commenced on May 9, 1934. In Seattle, longshore workers were able to win the support of other unions on the waterfront, including the Teamsters, in spite of the opposition from then local 566 president Dave Beck. Violence broke out between striking workers and scabs and their police escorts, who attempted to open the ports by force. In San Francisco, the murder of two longshore workers by police during an attempt to open the port by force became known as “Bloody Thursday.” The strike came to an end after both employers and the ILA agreed to allow government arbitration in contract negotiations. Roosevelt’s mediation board’s main concession gave the union control of hiring halls, ending the fink hall system. Longshore workers returned to work on July 31.

Following the 1934 strike, longshore locals on the west coast became the Pacific Coast District of the ILA and frequently clashed with conservative ILA leadership on the East Coast. Under the leadership of Harry Bridges, who had been elected president of the Pacific Coast District in 1936, the Pacific Coast District broke with the ILA and craft unionist American Federation of Labor (AFL) and became the International Longshore and Warehouse Union in 1937. The new ILWU quickly affiliated with the Committee for Industrial Organization (CIO).

Under Bridges’ leadership, the ILWU went on strike again in 1948 following the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act and employer attempts to reestablish the fink hall system. Bridges also negotiated the Mechanization and Modernization Agreement of 1960 that created three classes of longshore workers amidst lowering employment rates due to new technologies at ports. Following Nixon’s announcement of wage freezes, the ILWU went on strike again in 1971, shutting down all 56 West Coast ports from Canada to San Diego for 130 days, the longest strike in the union’s history. This strike was successful in winning higher wages and a lower retirement age.

A major blow to Local 19 came in 1982 when Sea-Land decided not to renew its contract in Seattle and instead signed a contract with the Port of Tacoma. This has been a continued trend, with commerce at the Port of Seattle continuing to decline, while the Port of Tacoma has experienced increased commercial development.

Sources: ILWU Local 19 website https://www.ilwu19.com/history/100years.htm?

Seattle Waterfront Workers History Project https://depts.washington.edu/dock/timeline.shtml

Content Description

This collection contains membership meeting minutes, roll book, correspondence, notes, a scrapbook from 1948 Longshore Strike, materials from Waterfront Employer Association president Frank Foisie, records from the International Longshore Benevolent Association, and a photograph of the casket of Gordon J. Kelly Longshoremen’s Association of Vancouver (ILA Local 38-52).

Streetcar strike scrapbooks, 1917.
Seattle and Tacoma streetcar employees of the Puget Sound Traction, Light and Power Company went out on strike on July 16, 1917. The strike was in protest of the firing of seven Tacoma streetcar workers who were involved with union activities. Striking employees demanded recognition of their union and better working conditions, including an eight-hour working day, the elimination of swing runs and a pay increase. On several occasions, the Puget Sound Traction, Light and Power Company tried to continue running streetcars throughout the strike, however their attempts were not successful. The company brought in drivers from the East, but many of these new drivers, seeing the conditions, decided to also join the strike. Additionally, public support lay behind the streetcar employees; an estimated 80 to 90 percent of citizens supported this strike. Eventually many of the issues between the two parties were solved through an arbitration board. The Puget Sound Traction, Light and Power Company recognized the right of its employees to affiliate with the Amalgamated Association of Street Railway Employees around October 1, 1917.
The streetcar strike scrapbooks contain full editions of three Seattle newspapers, The Post-Intelligencer, The Seattle Star, and The Seattle Daily Times from July and August of 1917. The start date of all of the newspapers is July 16, 1917, so it is assumed that they were collected to document the history of the Seattle streetcar strike. In each of these newspapers there are various articles about and photographs of the 1917 strike. Additionally, advertisements created by The Puget Sound Traction, Light and Power Company, which try to portray the striking streetcar employees in a negative light can also be found. Many of these articles, pictures, and advertisements can also be found in the Arthur L. Kempster scrapbooks.

Union records in this collection consist primarily of meeting minutes, membership records, and financial records. The membership records are mainly in the form of dues ledgers, which record members' initiation date and dues payments as well as suspension and reinstatement dates and transfers between local unions. In some cases these ledgers record workers' home addresses and employers.

These records are organized in record subgroups corresponding to the local organization that created them.

Local 8 records in this collection have some overlap with the records of the local unions which merged to form it. Local 8 records include minutes (1974-1979), membership records (1971-1991), financial records (1978-1986), as well as constitutions and bylaws of related local unions (1927-1984).

Records from Seattle-area local unions include those from Cooks and Assistants, Local 33 (membership records, 1908-1977); Waitresses, Local 240 (membership records, 1900-1960; financial records, 1963-1970); Dining Room Employees, Local 3 - a merger of the Waiters Local 239 and Waitresses, Local 240 (membership records, 1950-1970); Bartenders Union, Local 487 (meeting minutes, 1942-1971; membership records, 1918-1967; financial records, 1919-1934); and Hotel, Motel and Club Service Employees, Local 551 (membership records, 1947-1970). Records of the Seattle Joint Executive Board include meeting attendance records (1915-1976), financial records (1903-1974), and collective bargaining records (1957-1975).

Spokane, Local 400 records include collective bargaining records (1943-1979) and legal records (1980-1983).

Tacoma Joint Local Executive Board records include correspondence and legal records (1969-1976). Records from Tacoma, Local 61 include meeting minutes (1902-1979), membership records (1901-1953), financial records (1901-1969) and collective bargaining records (1917-1970). Local 61, together with Bartenders Union, Local 711, merged to form Local 20 in 1979; this organization is represented here by a small group of records. Tacoma Local 61 established the Local 61 Building Corporation to own and manage its union hall in downtown Tacoma, which it purchased in 1945. Records of this corporation include minutes, property and financial records, and correspondence related to the ownership of the building (1945-1976).

Other local union records include those from local unions in Aberdeen (Hotel and Restaurant Employees and Bartenders' Union, Local 791), Bellingham (Culinary and Beverage Workers Union, Local 529), Everett (Culinary Workers and Bartenders, Local 451), Bremerton (Cooks and Waiters Culinary Alliance, Local 730), and Renton (Culinary Workers and Bartenders, Local 596).

Washington State Association of U.A Plumbers and Pipefitters (WSA) was founded in 1921 to promote cooperation of all plumber and pipefitters local unions in the State of Washington so they may protect each local union member from "unjust and injurious competition."

In 1995, the WSA established an organizing department funded by all working members of the WSA to address lost market share and union density, and is one of the earliest statewide organizing systems in the United States. The WSA coordinates and funds organizing activities in area U.A. Plumbers & Pipefitters locals and works to prevent the open shop. The WSA has signed nearly 200 contractors since it started and has organized over 1,000 new members. The WSA is active legislatively and politically, coordinating political action of local unions and their members at both the local and national level.

As of 2013, the WSA had 7,324 members belonging to six local unions, all of which are United Association affiliates. The association's affiliates are: UA Local 26- Western Washington Plumbers and Steamfitters; UA Local 32- Seattle Plumbers and Steamfitters; UA Local 44- Spokane Plumbers and Steamfitters; UA Local 598- Pasco Plumbers and Steamfitters; UA Local 669- Road Sprinklerfitters; UA Local 699- Seattle Sprinklerfitters