Like most international unions, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) has a national headquarters and set of officers known as the grand lodge, and regional and local branches called district lodges and local lodges respectively. Unlike most unions, the IAM has a tradition of decentralization, with the local lodges forming the basic unit within the organization. The locals negotiate most contracts and select convention delegates. Moreover, referendum votes rather than convention actions are used to elect national officers. District lodges also have specific and somewhat restricted functions. They are not intended as intermediaries between local lodges and the grand lodge. Rather, they are formed in instances where regional or industry wide bargaining is more practical than local negotiating. In addition to bargaining and contract administration, they have responsibilities in the areas of organizing, education, public relations, and political activities. IAM national officers consist of the international president (until 1899 called the grand master workman), the general secretary-treasurer, and the vice-presidents. Together they compose the executive council. One vice-president is assigned to headquarters as chief of staff, one is assigned to the transportation industries (airline, railroad, and automobile), and others have regional jurisdictions.
Originally called the Order of United Machinists and Mechanical Engineers, the IAM was founded in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1888. In 1895 it affiliated with the AFL after agreeing to drop a “whites only” clause from its constitution. However, a similar clause was inserted into the organization's secret ritual and effectively used to exclude non-whites until it was removed in 1947.
For its first 35 years the IAM was characterized by a strong craft orientation and had most of its strength in the railroad shops. Much of this period was also marked by bitter conflict with the National Metal Trades Association, the principal employer group in the industry. Like most of organized labor, the IAM prospered during World War I. However, strikes and other problems which beset the railroads in the 1920's took their toll. Membership dropped from a peak of 331,000 in 1919 to 72,000 in 1925, and the treasury was also depleted. In addition, the union experienced jurisdictional problems with the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and other internationals, and serious conflicts with the AFL.
In 1926 Arthur O. Wharton replaced William Johnston as international president, and in the next few years he exercised a stabilizing influence over the organization. But the Depression and the advent of the CIO brought further membership losses. To counter these trends, Wharton and his successor, Harvey Brown, modified the IAM's traditional craft emphasis and conducted aggressive organizing drives among the production workers in the airframe industry and in other areas.
Spurred by World War II-era industrial expansion, these drives greatly expanded membership but resulted in renewed and even more serious jurisdictional conflicts with the carpenters, operating engineers, and others. These and other disputes caused the IAM to leave the AFL in 1946.
After another change in administration (Albert J. Hayes succeeded Brown in 1948) the IAM re-affiliated with the AFL in 1951. By this time the shifts of the late 1930's and the 1940's had also changed the composition and outlook of the organization. The emphasis on skilled craftsmen had declined and the organization had transformed into essentially an industrial union. The bulk of the membership had moved from the railroads to the metal fabricating industry, with aircraft industry workers composing the largest component of the union.
For a capsule history of the IAM see chapter one of Mark Perlman's Democracy in the International Association of Machinists (New York, 1962). A full treatment of the IAM's history is found in Perlman's The Machinists: A New Study in American Trade Unionism (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1962).
