1896 |
Samuel Gompers of the AFL issues a call for a national convention of meat packers
in Cincinnati.
|
1897 |
Constitution drafted by 4 delegates to the Cincinnati convention is accepted by AFL
and union is chartered as the Amagalmated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen of North
America. Homer Call, the secretary-treasurer, and Michael Donnelly, the second
president, are the early leaders.
|
1904 |
AMCBWNA leadership calls a national strike. The strikes fails, and the
international barely survives. Donnelly departs.
|
1917 |
With support of reform elements, Dennis Lane replaces Call as secretary-treasurer.
He is leading figure in the union for the next quarter of a century.
|
1918 |
AMCBWNA revives during World War I and membership increases from 6,000 to 63,000 in
two years.
|
1920 |
Patrick Gorman is elected vice-president. In 1923 he is elected president. Gorman
continues in this position until 1942.
|
1921 |
AMCBWNA calls its second national strike to protest wage cuts after major meat
packers repudiate their wartime agreement. The strike is disastrous. A stable base among
retail butchers is the backbone of the union during the 1920s.
|
1934 |
A series of indecisive strikes ends the AMCBWNA effort to organize packinghouse
workers. The CIO launches its own attempt to organize packinghouse workers as the
Packinghouse Workers Organizing Committee.
|
1935 |
Safeway stores signs the first national agreement in the retail industry.
|
1940 |
AMCBWNA merges with the Sheep Shearers' International Union.
|
1941 |
Armour signs the first master agreement in the meat packing industry.
|
1942 |
Patrick Gorman elected secretary-treasurer to succeed Dennis Lane. Earl W. Jimerson
elected president.
|
1943 |
PWOC becomes United Packinghouse Workers of America.
|
1946 |
Post-war labor conflict results in a two-week strike called by both the AMCBWNA and
UPWA against the nation's major packers. President Truman uses his war-time power to
seize the packing plants. AMCBWNA workers return to work. Master agreement with the
major packers is reached in November.
|
1951 |
AMCBWNA merges with United Leather Workers International Union.
|
1953 |
AFL merges with CIO. AMCBWNA and UPWA agree to coordinated bargaining. Although
merger is mentioned with UPWA, discussions fail.
|
1955 |
AMCBWNA merges with the Stockyard Workers' Association of America and the
International Fur and Leather Workers Union of the United States and Canada.
|
1957 |
After the death of Earl Jimerson, Thomas J. Lloyd is elected president of the
International.
|
1958 |
AMCBWNA merges with the Fur and Leather Workers Union. Communist officers are asked
to resign or be expelled.
|
1960 |
AMCBWNA merges with the National Agricultural Workers Union.
|
1968 |
AMCBWNA merges with the UPWA, now the United Packinghouse, Food and Allied Workers,
as a result of talks that began as early as 1953.
|
1972 |
Joseph Belsky succeeds Lloyd as international president.
|
1976 |
Patrick Gorman becomes chairman of the board, and Harry Poole is elected to replace
him. Addie Wyatt is elected as the first woman vice president of an international
union.
|
1979 |
AMCBWNA merges with the Retail Clerks International Union to become one of the
first “multi-jurisdictional, mega-unions.” William H. Wynn of the RCIU is
founding president. Harry Poole of AMCBWNA is elected vice-president.
|