Series II: The Communist Party U.S.A. and the American Labor Movement: Individual Labor Unions

The CPUSA has always emphasized the importance of working within the labor movement. Many Party members have been actively involved in CP caucuses within individual unions and, on occasion, Party sympathizers have achieved positions of prominence. This section of the collection is devoted to unions in which there has been active or influential communist participation. It is arranged by union and includes information on Distributive, Processing, and Office Workers of America; Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Workers Union; Amalgamated Food Workers Union; United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of America; United Rubber, Cork, Linoleum, and Plastic Workers of America; International Fur and Leather Workers Union of the U. S. and Canada; United Public Workers of America; Transport Workers Unions; International Longshoremen and Warehousemen's Union; Packinghouse Workers Union; United Gas, Coke, and Chemical Workers of America; National Maritime Union; Upholsterers International Union; Cloth, Hat, Cap, and Millinery Workers International Union; Cutters Local 10; International Ladies' Garment Workers Union; Joint Board of Cloak, Skirt, Dress, and Reefer Makers Unions of New York.

There are many sources of information about communist activity in the labor movement. Articles, notes, and news clippings reveal some aspects of the CP 's relations with organized labor and make up part of the files of all the unions listed above. For a few unions, these are supplemented by more extensive descriptions; there are a short history of the Packinghouse Workers Union, detailed notes on the Amalgamated Food Workers Union, and a substantial history in manuscript of the United Electrical Workers by William Goldsmith.

Both public and private efforts to expose communist "subversion" of the labor movement are useful, though not always reliable sources. Reports of congressional hearings concerning the Distributing, Processing, and Office Workers of America; the Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers Union; and the United Electrical Workers; and N. L. R. B. reports regarding the filing of false noncommunist affidavits on the part of the International Fur and Leather Workers Union and the Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers Union, are included in the files of the respective unions. Anticommunist propaganda put out by Oppenheim Collins against Local 1250 of the D. P. O. W. A. is the only example of the private "expose."

Finally, there is a variety of primary materials. The internal struggles occasioned by CP activities in unions are reflected in leaflets and statements of the Communist and anticommunist factions within the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union; the International Ladies' Garment Workers Union; and the International Fur and Leather Workers Union and in the report of the trial and expulsion of the United Public Workers of America from the CIO The files of the United Electrical Radio and Machine Workers Union include a class book of the District Fraction Training School for 1937-1938. The material on the needle trades unions is most helpful for an understanding of CP policies and daily activities in the labor movement: the correspondence of Herman Zukowsky with accompanying union material for the period 1926-1937; Trade Union Educational League and Trade Union Unity League material concerning the Cloth, Hat, Cap, and Millinery Workers Union; and reports and statements of the State Board of the Cloak, Skirt, Dress, and Reefer Makers Unions of New York.