Introduction

Schaufenbil's Early Years in the Labor Movement
Scope and Content Note: His first job was in the Prairie du Chien (Wisconsin) Woolen Mill Company. He went to work there as a woolen weaver in March 1935 and worked at that job for six years. In 1938 he and others started organizing the mill, and it was chartered in 1939 as United Textile Workers of America (UTW) Local 2563. In 1940 he was elected president of the local; he proceeded from there to help organize the (Midwestern) Council of Textile Unions and was elected its president in January 1941. Based on that position, he was appointed an International representative of the UTW and placed in charge of the Midwestern area. When it was chartered, Local 2563 was virtually the only UTW local in the Midwest, but within a few years the Midwestern Council had 15 or 16 locals. In December 1941 he was elected a vice president of the UTW, which office he held until his election as secretary-treasurer in 1956. He became president in 1972.

Organizing the Prairie du Chien Woolen Mill
Scope and Content Note: The workers were approached by a TWOC organizer in 1938, but they rejected the TWOC effort. “In those days we didn't understand the CIO, and there was a suspicion that they were more radical than we wanted to be affiliated with.” There was very little organized labor in the area - just the railroad workers and a small tool factory. When the woolen mill workers asked these organized workers where to look for organizing assistance, naturally they directed them to the AFL. The Wisconsin Federation of Labor sent two organizers, and the local was chartered by the UTW in December 1939.

Why Francis Gorman and Others Sought Rechartering by the AFL in 1939
Scope and Content Note: Schaufenbil was not in the labor movement at that time; but, from talking with Gorman and others and studying the records, he concluded that when the UTW agreed to the founding of the Textile Workers Organizing Committee (TWOC), they were seduced...by a promise from Sidney Hillman and John L. Lewis that, if they would come into the arrangement and join them, they would still be a part of the AFL, but the new group...has a tremendous treasury to use in their behalf to organize the textile workers.” “...That money was not spent. Instead, TWOC took over the old United Textile Workers of America and all of the local unions and their treasuries and whatever little money was spent was spent out of the treasuries of the local unions, and this convinced the leaders of the UTWA that the CIO was not legitimate....It was trying to formulate a big organization but did not have the funds....” Nine or ten Rhode Island locals of the UTW resisted in court the confiscation of their treasuries. They won in court and then formed the nucleus of the new UTW. [Like many of Schaufenbil's opinions and descriptions, his version of this court case differs considerably from the TWUA version. Actually, it was TWOC which brought the case against the Rhode Island locals, or rather against Joseph Sylvia as the representative of these locals. While TWOC lost this case in the lower court and the UTW used this case, which declared the whole TWOC agreement invalid, as a rationale for returning to the AFL, the lower court was overturned by the Rhode Island Supreme Court.]

Disposition of Money Collected by CIO for TWOC
Scope and Content Note: Schaufenbil would not speculate on what happened to the over one million dollars collected from the Mine Workers, the Ladies' Garment Workers, and the Clothing Workers for the TWOC campaign; but he maintained it was not spent for organizing.

UTW Had No Ambitions to Overtake TWUA
Scope and Content Note: UTW received its charter back from the AFL in 1939, but it never got its treasury back, and it was not able to set up an office in Washington, D.C., until 1940. The UTW was able to organize many workers in the early years. It went to the 1941 convention with 24,000-25,000 members, to the 1944 convention with 40,000 members, and to the 1948 convention with 90,000 members. “So, while our drive would be successful numerically, we didn't expect to take on the world and overcome the TWUA who had our old treasury and our old members.”

UTW Strength in the Midwest
Scope and Content Note: Schaufenbil has worked for the UTW in the South, New Jersey, and New England. “I find that there are different brands of trade unionism in different parts of the country. And, while I may be chauvinistic about it, I think that here in the Midwest you find a more loyal type of member who is more in favor of trade unionism per se than you do in the other parts of the country.” The Midwest has a stable and loyal union membership in both good and bad economic times. Midwestern unionists are the type who would prefer the UTW over the TWUA.

TWUA Raids of UTW Locals
Scope and Content Note: From the formation of the UTW in 1939 to the merger of the AFL and the CIO in 1955, “we in our organization were constantly beset with continuous raids by the Textile Workers Union, who called us a splinter union and who vowed to demolish us and so on. And, as a result, every time one of our contracts anywhere in the United States came to a period for renewal, we were raided by TWUA organizers, and petitions were filed with the National Labor Relations Board; and we found ourselves spending most of our treasury defending ourselves against those raids.” The TWUA seldom won these raid situations; Schaufenbil can recall only two or three locals lost to the TWUA. Big locals, like Local 1113 in Lawrence, Massachusetts, faced eight or ten NLRB elections, but the UTW won every time. One large New England local got to the point where it would approach the TWUA when its contract was up for renewal and convince the TWUA that it was ready to shift away from the UTW. The TWUA would then put 50-80 of the local people on its payroll at $100 a week, and they would work diligently for the period prior to the election, but on election day they would vote for the UTW, “and they'd laugh like hell.” The UTW did not attempt to raid the TWUA; it was too busy fighting off TWUA raids.

UTW Success against TWUA in NLRB Elections
Scope and Content Note: The UTW gained considerable membership, 1941-48, and often TWUA was on the ballot. One reason for UTW success against TWUA was that TWUA's size, strength, and wealth made it arrogant, “and you can't be arrogant with textile workers.”

The American Federation of Hosiery Workers Did Not Seek Affiliation with the UTW after It Left the TWUA in 1948

UTW's Difficulties with the Woolen and Worsted Federation
Scope and Content Note: One of the reasons for forming the UTW in 1939 was to provide more local autonomy. The first UTW convention made the mistake of including provision for federations in its constitution. The UTW, at succeeding conventions, attempted to correct this mistake. The federations, particularly the Woolen and Worsted Federation, attempted to become international unions in their own right; they “tried to be the dog that wagged the tail.” Sometimes they did not rebate per capita to the UTW. The 1944 and 1946 UTW conventions amended the constitution to wipe out federations and to provide for locals to affiliate autonomously with the International, without a federation or council affiliation in between. The Woolen and Worsted Federation, in response, withheld its per capita in 1946 and was suspended. The UTW sent all its organizers to New England and took control of the 44 locals of the Federation.

The TWUA's Joint Board Structure Was a Major Obstacle to TWUA/UTW Merger
Scope and Content Note: Over the years the UTW locals have come to prize the direct affiliation, the local autonomy which was given them by the 1944 and 1946 conventions. The UTW has always viewed the TWUA joint board structure as an outgrowth of the federation system. The joint board collected dues, paid local expenses, paid per capita to the International, and rebated a small sum to the locals. “Now this is all the local unions had. They had no autonomy. They were dictated to by the joint boards. And this is one of the reasons that we could never come to a merger agreement because we always insisted...that we had to be freed of the joint board concept.” In the last merger meeting, the TWUA made a token gesture to permit UTW locals not to affiliate with joint boards, but the UTW viewed that as a system which would cause further divisions.

Introduction

TWUA Joint Boards That Seceded to the UTW in 1952
Scope and Content Note: The Pittsylvania County Joint Board in Danville, Virginia, was maintained as a joint board in name only. Because the checkoff had been lost, there was no money to maintain a real joint board. Local 248, Dan River, is the main local there, and it and the other locals in the area operate autonomously. The Northeastern Pennsylvania Council, which had been a TWUA joint board, works pretty much like a joint board, but only because that is what the people there want.

Getting Rid of the Federation System in the 1940s Did Not Make the UTW Similar in Structure to the TWUA Because the TWUA Still Had the Joint Board System

TWUA Raids on UTW Woolen and Worsted Locals
Scope and Content Note: Schaufenbil was appointed to take over the rebellious Woolen and Worsted Federation on October 14, 1946. By the following spring the UTW had expelled the Federation President, Joseph Sylvia, and thereby ended the schism he was leading. The TWUA petitioned for an election in every one of the 44 locals of the UTW's Woolen and Worsted Federation. TWUA's Bill Belanger used his influence with the Boston NLRB office, and it ruled that elections in all 44 locals would be held in a two-day period. This was quite a blow to the UTW because it had only 20 organizers. Yet the UTW lost only one local, and that by only one vote.

Mid-1940s Meeting of Schaufenbil with TWUA Leaders
Scope and Content Note: In 1943 or 1944 TWUA's Bill Tullar asked Schaufenbil to dinner in Milwaukee. Tullar wanted him to join the TWUA and bring all the midwestern UTW locals with him. “I told him he was wasting his time. I won't do it. And that's all there was to it.”

UTW Reaction to the TWUA Internal Dispute of 1950-1952
Scope and Content Note: “Couldn't happen to nicer guys.” People felt it was a vindication of the position they had taken in 1939.

UTW Reaction to George Baldanzi's Secession Movement in 1952
Scope and Content Note: Initially there was considerable divergence of opinion. Debate in the Executive Board lasted four or five days before it was decided to accept Baldanzi, his followers, and whatever locals he could bring with him. Several Board members actually thought this was all just a ploy to get Baldanzi inside the UTW so that he could later deliver it to the TWUA. When the decision was made, they knew they would be in for quite a fight with the TWUA. They passed a resolution, however, “to go for broke.” UTW borrowed one-and-a-half million dollars from the United Mine Workers and paid it back within three years. They got quite a few members from TWUA; unfortunately, many of the plants liquidated thereafter. Several of Baldanzi's colleagues later became officers in the UTW, including Charles Sobol and current UTW Secretary-Treasurer Bill Foley, a Canadian.

George Baldanzi after Joining the UTW
Scope and Content Note: He was named Director of Organization, but when the one-and-a-half million dollars ran out, the UTW had to cut corners. George Meany then appointed Baldanzi to a position dealing with the International Longshoremen's Association situation at the Brooklyn waterfront. When he finished that assignment, he became a business agent for a Teamsters local in New Jersey. “And that's where he was working when we persuaded him to become an officer of the UTW.”

UMW Loan to UTW in 1952
Scope and Content Note: The UTW leadership went to John L. Lewis and explained the situation to him. “And he said, 'I'll give you a million-and-a-half dollars. This is the first breath of fresh air I've had out of the AF of L in years.'”

Baldanzi and the 1950-1952 TWUA Internal Dispute
Scope and Content Note: Baldanzi was politically naive. He could have won the presidency of TWUA in 1950, but he refused to run for it. That gave Emil Rieve two years to build his forces. Rieve outmaneuvered Baldanzi because he had the treasury. Baldanzi felt Rieve put Danville on strike in 1951 in order to weaken him. The attempt to dump Baldanzi resulted from bitterness, hard feelings, enmity, and distrust that had been building up over the years.

Baldanzi Was Disappointed at the Number of TWUA Members He Was Able to Bring to UTW
Scope and Content Note: He thought most of his supporters would follow him into the UTW.

The Decision to Make Baldanzi President of the UTW
Scope and Content Note: The UTW Executive Council made the decision, based on Schaufenbil's recommendation. [Schaufenbil would not answer, for the record, why he made this recommendation.]

TWUA/UTW Merger Attempt in 1958
Scope and Content Note: The merger was proposed by the AFL-CIO, which named James Carey chairman of a committee to effect the merger. Three meetings were held. Carey presented “Agreement A” and both sides picked it apart. “Agreement B” was also unsatisfactory. The UTW then redrafted the agreement and submitted its own version. There were no more meetings.

Stumbling Blocks in the 1958 Merger Attempt
Scope and Content Note: The UTW wanted the officers of the merged union to come from the UTW. The TWUA offered to let the UTW have the executive vice presidency, but insisted that, if the UTW proposed Baldanzi for that position, Baldanzi take a voluntary leave of absence for two years. Neither side was serious about merger at the time. Baldanzi summed it up in a letter to Jacob Potofsky: “The sincerity of TWUA's desire for merger during this period must be considered also in the light of the fact that the UTW at that time was in quite a mess before the McClellan Committee, and I feel that TWUA raised such a clamor for merger, which was accompanied by an intensified effort to take over many of the locals of the UTW, was rooted primarily in the hope, which proved vain, that it could swallow up the UTW (sic).”

Baldanzi Did Want Merger with the TWUA
Scope and Content Note: Schaufenbil feels Baldanzi may have been too inclined in that direction. Baldanzi, however, always viewed himself as being the top officer of any new union.

The Main Stumbling Blocks to Merger Attempts in the 1960s and 1970s
Scope and Content Note: Baldanzi's ambition for the top administrative position in any merged organization was not a block to merger. The UTW Executive Council would have overruled Baldanzi if it thought it could get a good merger agreement. The main obstacle was that the TWUA did not really want merger, but rather wanted the UTW to affiliate. TWUA wanted the UTW to take the TWUA name and no offices. The UTW would merge only on an organization-to-organization basis; the UTW people knew they could not have the top offices. “They (TWUA) just took the position we were a small organization (and) should be happy to affiliate with them. That was the stumbling block.”

The Two Organizations Never Came Close to Effecting Merger
Scope and Content Note: The TWUA claim that the only block in the 1962 talks was that the UTW wanted its entire Executive Council to come into the new organization intact is false. There were always more stumbling blocks than that.

The Big TWUA Defeats in the 1950s - 1951 Southern Cotton Strike, Harriet-Henderson, and Darlington - Had No Effect on the UTW

UTW Reaction to TWUA's 1962-1964 Internal Fight
Scope and Content Note: “Couldn't happen to nicer guys.”

A Victory by the Majority Forces in TWUA in 1964 Would Not Have Facilitated Merger
Scope and Content Note: If Bill Belanger had won the presidency of TWUA in 1964, it would have made merger even more difficult. Belanger was Schaufenbil's counterpart in the TWUA - New England Director. Belanger was always trying to decimate UTW locals in New England, and for that reason Schaufenbil would have had a more difficult time coming to a merger agreement with him than with Bill Pollock. Belanger was arrogant.

Liquidation of the Woolen and Worsted Industry Was the Main Reason for the UTW's Membership Decline
Scope and Content Note: UTW membership peaked in the early 1950s. Then the woolen and worsted industry in New England began to be liquidated. That industry did not move south; it was liquidated. For example, Albert List, a financier, purchased Arlington Mill. The year before its liquidation the mill made a twelve-million-dollar profit, but List liquidated it anyway “for the sole purpose of getting a terrific tax benefit out of it.” Woolen manufacturers were stubborn and refused to believe that American men would ever wear suits made of anything but wool. As a result, they gave up the market to synthetic blends. Forty percent of UTW's membership was in woolen and worsted mills, and “they all went within a period of three years. It was a hell of a blow. God, you can't recover from that.” The same thing happened in synthetics, as the rayon industry declined.

Introduction

Historically the Wool Sorters Were the Strongest Craft Union in the Textile Industry
Scope and Content Note: Wool sorters graded the fleece before anything else was done to it. This process has since been eliminated, but at one time it was the most skilled of all jobs in the textile industry because there were sixty to seventy different grades of wool from one sheep.

Schaufenbil Cannot Explain Why Such a Large Percentage of UTW Membership Was in the Woolen and Worsted Industry
Scope and Content Note: “It's just that wool workers were more loyal to us.” Similarly, Schaufenbil does not understand why the dyers were so loyal to TWUA.

The Relationship of the UTW and the Textile Division of the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union (ACTWU)
Scope and Content Note: “We talk.” Cordial. “We're friendly; we don't fight each other. They raid us once in a while yet, but we don't mind - small locals.”

Schaufenbil Has No Comments Regarding His Reaction to the TWUA Merger with the Amalgamated Clothing Workers

Schaufenbil's Opinion of ACTWU's J.P. Stevens Campaign
Scope and Content Note: “I think it is a great thing. I think they're doing a good job on it. I hope they're successful. If anybody ought to have his ass tanned, it's J.P. Stevens....” If TWUA is successful, it will not automatically open the whole South to organizing, but it should help the UTW somewhat. “I think the hatred of unionism is so deeply entrenched in those guys (southern employers) that it's not going to disappear until they die away.”