Born in Austria in 1909, Leon Schachter came to the United States in 1927. He found employment in a poultry shop in Philadelphia which he helped organize for Local 195, Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen of North America (AMC&BW) in 1934. He worked as an organizer for Local 195 until 1940 when he was given his own charter, Local 56, in New Jersey. He served as president of Local 56 from its beginning until his retirement in 1980, having built up a thriving and diversified local of 10,000 members. He became an AMC&BW vice-president in 1948, served as United States Labor Attaché to Turkey, 1952-54, became Director of District 1, AMC&BW's largest, in 1956, chaired the AMC&BW-Teamsters Joint Organizing Committee in the mid-1950's, was a key figure in the AMC&BW merger with the Retail Clerks International Union (RCIU) in 1979, and was Director of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union's (UFCW) Mid-Atlantic Region 4 at the time of his retirement.
