The IWNA affiliation was a large step with a variety of risks. The over 7,500 workers had seen their leaders’ trust violated by another AFL-CIO union, one with a top-down style of leadership. They had seen promises broken and coordinated bargaining fall victim to internal union politics. The UPIU, in turn, would have to broaden its identity from that of a single-industry union to make the move a success.

When 130 delegates gathered for what would be the final IWNA convention in February 1991, they brought along the memories of their struggle for accountable leadership. They also brought the results of balloting and discussions on affiliation around the country by each of their locals.

Taking the extra time to emphasize the drama of the decision, and the fact it was rooted in these rank-and-file discussions, delegates chose to conduct a roll-call vote. When all the votes were recorded, the IWNA chose representation with the UPIU by a 92 percent margin. Seventy locals became part of the UPIU, and four major locals at Lehigh-Portland Cement Company voted to affiliate several months later in Board-conducted elections.

The IWNA unions primarily represented workers involved in the manufacture of building materials and mining. The majority of IWNA unions had roots in the United Cement, Lime, Gypsum, and Allied Workers (CLGAW), which was reorganized as a division of the Boilermakers in April 1984. The IWNA was formed when cement, lime, mining, and gypsum locals began to leave the Boilermakers after that union’s August 1986 convention when dissention occurred within the Boilermakers’ leadership.

Setting up offices in Chicago, the Independent Workers adopted the eagle as a symbol and convinced most cement locals to abandon the Boilermakers. Regional offices were set up in eastern Pennsylvania, Georgia, Alabama, and southern California.

Despite the problems, the cement workers short-lived marriage to the Boilermakers had its successes. An in-plant strategy known as the Solidarity and Unity Program was developed and played a role in reviving locals which were decimated by the recession of 1981-82. The program was generally credited with helping the unions “hold the line” in the summer of 1984, when 70 percent of cement workers nationally were without a contract or under company-implemented contracts.

There were numerous threads of similarity in the cement unions and the UPIU. Both unions grew rapidly during the Great Depression. Both placed a strong emphasis on open decision-making, and both traditionally had high-wage bases, developed through pattern agreements within respective industries.

Both unions began the use of in-plant strategies as a response to company-imposed concessionary bargaining in the 1980s. The cement unions found the limits of in-plant strategy in the 1984-87 contract struggles, attempting to use it as a blunt, industry-wide instrument. The industry, in turn, refused to give an inch because that would acknowledge the power of the production slowdown as a virtual strike.

The affiliation agreement signed by the IWNA and the UPIU leadership in 1991 specified that IWNA locals would remain as formerly constituted.

The charter was one of the first issued to an American union to organize on an industrial basis. The old AFL, which was founded in 1881, had traditionally organized unions only on a craft basis—electricians in one union, plumbers in another, machinists in their own craft union. Before 1935, the one exception to this rule was the United Mine Workers union. William Green, then President of the AFL, recognized that organizing on a craft basis would not be effective in large industrial plants.

With the enactment of the National Labor Relations Act in 1935, millions of industrial workers sought to organize their own union.

On August 26 of that year, just eight weeks after President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the National Labor Relations Act into law, the AFL’s Green called the first convention of the UAW-AFL in Detroit, Michigan. Some 250 delegates from auto plants throughout the country attended. Over the objections of auto industry workers who sought an open election of officers, Green appointed Francis Dillon, an AFL representative, president of the UAW, and Homer Martin as vice president.

Martin immediately began visiting various strongholds of auto industry workers—already organized in UAW locals—and urged support for the democratic election of officers directly from auto-related plants. The AFL finally agreed in April 1936 to call a convention in South Bend, Indiana, to allow UAW members to elect their own officers. The delegates promptly elected Martin as their union’s first elected president.

Homer Martin was just what the UAW needed at the time. A spellbinding speaker, he was an outstanding organizer. At the time he took over as president of the UAW, the union had approximately 24,000 dues-paying members. Sparked by dramatic industrial actions, such as sit-down strikes, 1937 proved to be a year of fabulous growth. In February of that year, membership of the union stood at 88,000. But by October, dues-paying membership soared to 400,000.

In the midst of this unprecedented union growth, brewing factionalism was seeping into the burgeoning AFL, factionalism that would soon have a profound effect on the auto workers’ union. In 1936, John L. Lewis, president of the Mine Workers, formed the Committee for Industrial Organizations (CIO). Most of the industrial unions within the AFL immediately joined the CIO. In September of that year, the AFL suspended all of the unions associated with the CIO.

By the end of 1937, when efforts to resolve the differences between the AFL and CIO failed, the CIO changed its name to the Congress of Industrial Organizations and formally broke from the AFL. Meanwhile, a split was also growing imminent within the UAW. The rift culminated in 1939 when the larger, Detroit area local unions decided to stay with the CIO under the new leadership of Lewis. The Homer Martin faction, carrying the original UAW charter but with fewer members, re-elected the fiery former preacher as president and continued as the UAW-AFL, the predecessor of the AIW.

The AFL restored the original charter to the union, and promised that it would be “an autonomous industrial union” with complete jurisdiction in auto plants, auto parts plants, and in aircraft and farm implement industries. Such a pronouncement by the AFL was seen as a major change of  federation policy.

This meant that from 1939 to 1955 – the year the AFL and CIO merged – there were two United Auto Workers unions. Shortly following the AFL and CIO merger convention in December 1955, the UAW-AFL changed its name to the Allied Industrial Workers of America.

Some 12 years earlier, the union moved its headquarters from Detroit to Milwaukee. In 1955, the union moved again, this time to Los Angeles. But the West Coast headquarters lasted only four years following action by the AIW convention in 1957 calling for a return to the Midwest. In 1959, the union built a new headquarters building on the southwest side of Milwaukee that was to serve the AIW until the UPIU merger in 1994.

Throughout the 1980s, the AIW slowly lost membership as more and more industrial companies moved their plants from the union’s stronghold areas to rural areas of the South or to Third World countries. The AIW also lost membership due to technological change. By the early 1990s, the AIW’s membership had declined by 50 percent from its 1975 figure of 100,000 members.

Nick Serraglio, who had served as the union’s secretary-treasurer for two years and as a vice president and regional director in Cleveland for 18 years, was elected president in 1991. He immediately began seeking a larger, stronger union with more resources to merge with the Milwaukee union. Delegates to the 1991 convention had instructed the AIW’s executive board to seek a merger partner.

An AIW merger committee headed by Serraglio reached agreement with the UPIU board in the first quarter of 1993. The AIW executive board approved the merger unanimously, and delegates to the AIW’s 29th Constitutional Convention in Minneapolis, Minnesota on September 20, 1993, ratified the merger by a 302-35 vote. The merger became effective on January 1, 1994.

1899 The International Brotherhood of Oil and Gas Well Workers was formed in the oil fields in Ohio and spread to Pennsylvania and California. It was forced out of existence by Standard Oil.

1905 The AFL chartered the Guffey Oil and Gas Well Workers Local in Beaumont, Texas and they led the first large scale, successful strike in the oil industry. Unions fought for wage increases, but not for recognition.
1913 The miners of the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, owned by John Rockefeller, struck for recognition, an 8-hour day, and a 10% raise. They were evicted from company-owned shacks and lived in a tent colony for the winter. In 1914, Rockefeller-controlled militia swept through the camps, killing 33 and injuring 100 people. This event ushered in an era of company unionism first in oil, then in other industries.

1918 The AFL chartered the International Association of Oil Field, Gas Well and Refinery Workers of America.

1933 The United Gas, Coke and Chemical Workers was founded and became a part of the United Mine Workers District 50 in 1935.

1935 The President of the International Association of Oil Field Workers helped organized the CIO and the union was expelled from the AFL in 1936.

1936 The CIO chartered the International Association of Oil Field, Gas Well and Refinery Workers of America.

1936 A reform caucus of the Oil Field, Gas Well and Refinery Workers created a rank-and-file Executive Board.

1937 The union changed its name to the Oil Workers International Union.

1942 The CIO chartered the United Gas, Coke and Chemical Workers Union as a separate union.

1945 First nationwide strike of the OWIU. The OWIU gained leadership within the industry in terms of setting the pattern on wages, hours, and working conditions.

1948 Oil Workers International Union charters first Canadian local union in Clarkson, Ontario.

1955 The Oil Workers International Union and the United Gas, Coke and Chemical Workers Union merged to form the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers International Union.

1956 OCAW’s first convention.

1965 Oil bargaining policy program established common termination dates. It took four years to get 400 oil industry contracts lined up on the common date.

1967 OCAW passes convention resolution on need for community/labor coalitions. Such coalitions were instrumental in helping secure passage of OSHA.

1969 Second nationwide strike in the oil industry over non-contributory pensions.

1970 Occupational Safety and Health Act passed. OCAW’s role in the early days of OSHA established the union as a strong advocate for worker health and safety.

1973 Nationwide strike and boycott of Shell Oil over health and safety. First major corporate campaign in U.S. labor history.

1974 Karen Silkwood, OCAW member, killed. Silkwood attempted to expose health and safety violations at the Cimarron Kerr-McGee facility.

1980 Third nationwide strike in the oil industry.

1980 Canadian OCAW membership establishes its own union, the Energy and Chemical Workers Union of Canada.

1984 BASF lockout at Geismar begins. Is 8th BASF lockout in a decade.

1987 OCAW receives a five-year multi-million dollar grant to develop a model health and safety training program for workers.

1989 Longest lockout in U.S. labor history ends after 51/2 years at BASF/ Geismar, Louisiana. Three-year agreement ratified.

1989 OCAW and Physicians for a National Health Program join forces to agitate for a single-payer national health plan for all Americans. OCAW/PNHP activity helps shape and sharpen the debate on the issue.

1991 OCAW convention passes resolution calling for “A New Social, Political, and Economic Agenda” which sets goals for the 1990s, including national health care, a Labor Party alternative, environmental protection, a Superfund for Workers, and international trade unionism.

1992 American Home Products settles with OCAW over plant closing at Elkhart; pays $24 million to avoid trial.

1993 National Women’s Conference held.

1994 OCAW Convention passes Resolution on Organizing and undertakes to fund, develop, and implement a successful program.

1995 AFL-CIO undergoes rare leadership contest and elects new President; OCAW regains seat on Executive Council.

1996 Founding Convention for U.S. Labor Party held in Cleveland, Ohio.

1997 Negotiation of National Oil Bargaining extension settlement with enforceable successorship language.

1998 Executive Board of OCAW and UPIU vote to proceed to merger convention.

Paperworkers have one of the longest organizing traditions in American history, with the first efforts dating back to 1765. Prior to the 1930s, however, there were no federal laws to protect union supporters from being fired, and those who supported organizing efforts often risked losing their livelihood. Despite these risks, many local unions were formed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These eventually coalesced into two organizations: the International Brotherhood of Papermakers, representing skilled members on the paper machines; and the International Brotherhood of Pulp, Sulphite, and Paper Mill Workers, representing skilled, semi-skilled, and non-skilled members in the mills.

UPIU members owed a great deal to their predecessors who were willing to risk all in the battle to establish a strong union in the paper industry. Time and time again, American employers bitterly resisted workers’ efforts to improve their conditions. In 1912, most employers fought workers’ attempts to secure the eight-hour working day. In the 1920s, paperworkers endured a five-year long strike at International Paper Company which saw union supporters evicted from their homes, guns erected on mill property, and strikers shot by company guards.

Workers’ desire for unionism was finally rewarded in the 1930s when the federal government, for the first time, recognized the right to form and organize unions. With federal protection now in place, union membership in the paper industry took off. During the 1930s, the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) established its own organizing committee for paperworkers which became the United Paperworkers of America a few years later. Becoming firmly established in the 1930s and 1940s, paper unions negotiated wage improvements and many of the benefits that UPIU members enjoyed. Since the 1930s, union pressure helped to establish paperworkers as some of the most highly paid manufacturing workers in the entire United States. In 1957, after the merger of the AFL and the CIO united the house of labor, the CIO Paperworkers merged with the Papermakers to form the United Papermakers and Paperworkers (UPP). Then, in 1972, the UPP merged with the Pulp and Sulphite Workers to form the UPIU.

In recent years, UPIU confronted new challenges. In the 1980s, for example, the union faced determined employer opposition and bitter strikes as corporations pressed to force  concessions from the UPIU members. The union, however, met all challenges head on, and increasingly recognized the need for all workers to stand together. UPIU continued to diversify its membership base, joining with other unions in a drive to build a more powerful union. In 1991, the UPIU welcomed 74 locals of the Independent Workers of North America (IWNA) into its fold. The IWNA affiliation brought in over 7,500 new members in the cement and kaolin industries. In January 1994, the UPIU merged with the Allied Industrial Workers, gaining members in automotive parts and a wide variety of related industries.

Throughout its history, workers in the UPIU and its predecessor organizations fought and sacrificed to build a large, successful union. They battled against determined corporate resistance to maintain a decent standard of living. The UPIU members’ spirit is captured by Leonard Wensel, a member from Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, who participated in the bitter 1987-88 strike against International Paper Company:

“I am union. I was forged with the sweat of many people. I was born to provide strength and protection for workers worldwide and I am dedicated to the goals of fair treatment for workers throughout the world and advance the goals of freedom everywhere. The blood of many members flows through my veins. I am thousands of people striving for better working conditions … I can be found in small villages and large towns in countries all over the world. I am black, white, red and yellow and every color in between. I am a Catholic, a Protestant, a Jew, a Christian and many other religions … I am the spirit of the world. I was the spirit that would not die during the confrontations with companies in the ‘20s and ‘30s. I am the spirit that small unions spread and developed into large unions and then into international unions. I am the spirit that still leads people to run for union offices … I have made my mark on time by standing with the leaders of the earliest of unions and with the newest of locals. I am a union member building my country. Be proud, be great and know that I am you, a union member.”

The desire to merge sprang from  the realization by both organizations that with greater resources, they could organize more workers and represent their members better in an age of corporate mergers and global competition.

PACE represents 275,000 workers in the pulp, paper, automobile parts, appliance manufacturing, cement, kaolin, oil, chemical, nuclear materials, and pharmaceutical industries. Other sectors include health care, aviation, natural gas distribution, and mining. It is the fourth largest industrial union.

The union has 1,500 locals in the U.S. and Canada, and is structured into 11 regions. Governing the union between conventions is the international union executive board that consists of the elected international officers.