Patrick E. Gorman joined Local 227 of the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen of North America in his home town of Louisville, Kentucky, in 1911. In 1920 he was elected Executive Vice-President of the Amalgamated. In the intervening years he served as business agent of Local 227, president of the Louisville Trades and Labor Assembly, a vice-president of the Kentucky Federation of Labor, and a special organizer for the Amalgamated. Also in that period he earned a law degree. President of the Amalgamated from 1923 to 1942, he became the union's chief executive officer, Secretary-Treasurer, in the latter year. He served in that post until 1976 when he retired to the post of Chairman of the Board. When the Amalgamated merged with the Retail Clerks International Union in 1979 to form the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, Gorman was honored with the title of Chairman of the Board Emeritus.
When Gorman became president of the Amalgamated, the union, having suffered two disastrous packinghouse worker strikes in the previous two decades, could claim a membership of but a few thousand. At the time of its merger with the Clerks, the union could claim a membership exceeding a half million. Gorman, a lifelong socialist and oftentimes maverick within the established labor movement, must be given credit for much of this growth. He truly deserves the title bestowed upon him--“Mr. Amalgamated.” Mr. Gorman died September 2, 1980, at eighty-seven years of age.
