The history of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, the largest union in the AFL-CIO, is the history of the many unions that have represented workers involved in the processing and sale of food or animal products. In earlier years, separate unions represented meat cutters, packinghouse workers, retail clerks, Jewish (kosher) meat cutters, fur and leather workers, and similar occupations. These separate unions gradually merged into a single international union, with area locals usually following suit. The international with which these unions normally merged was the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen of North America (AMC or The Amalgamated). The merger of June 5, 1979, between The Amalgamated and the Retail Clerks International Association was of such consequence that this newly formed body chose a new name: The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union. Although a merger with the Retail Clerks has not occurred on the local level, the name of the Amalgamated Meat Cutters Local was changed to District 427of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union. Nevertheless, the history of District 427 has been one of a journeymen's meat cutters local in Cleveland that has grown into a diversified union with jurisdiction over food workers in the nine county area of northeastern Ohio.
The Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen received their international charter from the American Federation of Labor in 1897. In Cleveland, Ohio, the Jewish (kosher) meat cutters were the first to organize, with locals appearing shortly after World War I. While District 427 was granted its charter in September 1933, the first references to a Local 427 appear in the Cleveland city directories of 1929-1931.
District 427's original concerns were to attract members, sign contracts with independent store operators, reduce store hours, and secure Sunday closing. Although jurisdictional and internal disputes and a lack of a consistent leadership hampered the Union on occasion, District 427 was strong enough to organize meat cutters employed by the food chains. In late October 1934, in cooperation with the Teamsters and six other unions, District 427 struck the A&P grocery stores and warehouses in Cleveland. This strike, which was settled by an October 31, 1934 Labor Relations Board ruling, opened the food chains to union organizations.
Despite these victories in the food chains, the Union was not without its problems. In 1944, Eugene Rich was removed as District 427's financial secretary and business agent by the International Amalgamated Executive Board and the Local placed in receivership, actions which prompted a letter of appeal by a group of Cleveland religious and civic leaders, including Elizabeth Magee of the Consumers League of Ohio and Rabbi Rudolph Rosenthal of the Temple on the Heights, who argued that Rich was a valuable union leader.
In the ensuing years, disputes between Rich and his successor, Harry N. Peters, created controversy, and in September 1951 the Amalgamated Board once again place the Union in receivership. International auditor James Riddelle was called in to manage District 427 and place its financial affairs in order. In May 1953, the International decided the Union was ready to elect officers. That month the membership elected a strong Executive Board and as president chose Sam Pollock, a former International organizer who had become involved in the Local's affairs during the receivership.
Under the leadership of Sam Pollock (1909-1983), District 427 became one of the strongest unions in the Amalgamated Meat Cutters. Pollock, who had twenty years of experience in union organizing, including the bitter Toledo Electric Auto-Lite Strike of the 1930s, proved to be an outstanding leader. The Union, already larger as a result of a 1950 merger with Meat Cutters Local 372 of Akron, continued to grow. Offices were maintained in Cleveland and Akron and membership meetings were held in Lorain, Geneva, Painesville, Canton, Cleveland, and Akron. The complex problems of negotiating contracts with the major chain stores and with hundreds of independent operators, as well as handling up to one hundred grievances a week, was an increasingly challenging task. However, Pollock maintained control over the widespread Union and secured the respect of the membership.
By the latter part of the decade, a great deal of organizing had been done and the negotiation of collective bargaining agreements was becoming routine. Even so, the District 427 picketed the Mother Hubbard Store on Euclid Avenue in Cleveland for over a year in order to enforce closing times and fought all the way to the United States Supreme Court to get a contract from Fairlawn Meats, Inc. The Fairlawn case, arising out of a 1954 strike, was decided in the Union's favor in 1957. A still earlier strike in 1952, now almost forgotten, secured an employer financed health and welfare program, an exceptional benefit at the time. This health program was the first union-industry plan to provide polio and flu shots to its members.
Throughout the years, District 427 members have supported the philosophy that a labor union should work for social change and for the improvement of living standards of all members of society, a philosophy enunciated by Pollock and supported the Board. With this in mind and after years of planning, District 427 and the Retail Clerks Local 880 established a Community Health Foundation in 1964, the first, prepaid, direct service, medical care program in northeast Ohio. This alternative, group health plan merged in 1969 with the Kaiser Health Plan of California to form the Kaiser Foundation Medical Health Care Plan of Ohio which now provides medical care for the general public at several community hospitals.
Support for the Kaiser hospitals and health programs is only one of the community projects with which the Local has been involved. After the Hough riots in Cleveland in 1966, the Local joined with the Building and Service Maintenance Union Local 47 to form the Community for Better Living, which helped finance the construction of the Park Village Apartments. This 94 unit complex, which was the first of its kind built in Hough in fifty years, was also the first rent supplemented apartment complex in the United States.
Realizing that political action is crucial to the achievement of many of their goals, District 427 members established their own independent political club in 1960 to educate union members and the public and to promote candidates and legislation favored by the Union. Not unexpectedly, the club has worked for stiffer mean inspection laws, opposed anti-union legislation including Right-to-Work laws, supported civil rights groups, and organized voter registration drives. In 1964, District 427 members cooperated with the Cleveland Typographical Union Local 53 to send two truckloads of food and clothing to the Hazard, Kentucky coal mine strikers. In the Cleveland area, District 427 inaugurated Operation Turkey, which has now become a function of the Entire Cleveland Labor Movement, providing free turkeys to area strikers during the holidays.
District 427 sponsored educational workshops and institutes addressing the problems of automation. Continuing education through seminars, workshops, and institutes is encouraged for all members. A national pension plan, which District 427 representatives helped negotiate, is one of the few union-industry pension plans to provide transferable benefits to workers changing jobs within the industry.
The Union's leaders, Sam Pollock and Frank Cimino, have been involved in many community activities. Both have served on the boards of many organizations, especially those concerned with health and housing. When Sam Pollock retired in January 1973, he became an assistant professor in Health Sciences at California State University at Northridge. Frank Cimino, who had been a District 427 official since 1948 and the Local's secretary-treasurer beginning in 1962, assumed the presidency upon Pollock's retirement in 1973. A pension fund expert in his own right, Cimino became an International Vice-President of the Amalgamated Meat Cutters in 1976, the highest position ever attained by a Clevelander in that union.
This Union is known to epitomize the American labor movement at its best: democratic, socially concerned, and deeply committed to collective bargaining. The Union's members are actively involved in the programs of the Union and have faithfully supported their Union over the years. Through collective bargaining they have secured higher wages, security, and outstanding benefits. At the same time they have struggled to improve the health and economic well being of the large community in which they work.
The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, Local 427 Records, Series II, 1944-1983 and undated, consist of correspondence, minutes, financial records, reports, contracts, and publications.
The majority of this collection relates largely to the administration of the union, the provision of benefits to its members, and to negotiations with employers. In the latter category researchers will find voluminous information concerning the packing house, meat, and fur industries in Cleveland and northeastern Ohio as well as data on the retail food stores, both independent and chain-operated, within this area of the state. Other important sections of the collection relate to the provision of pensions and the administration of the union pension plan. Material generated by Local 427 of northeast Ohio, as well as by the national and international union, are included. Two notable union leaders, Sam Pollock and Frank Cimino, are represented in the collection. The Pollock materials, as well as other subject areas of the collection reflect his concern with social reform in the areas of health care, housing, and the anti-war movement.
The collection is arranged alphabetically by subject and then chronologically.
The researcher should also consult MS 3892 United Food and Commercial Workers International Union Records; and PG 256 United Food and Commercial Workers International Union Photographs.
Processed by Ralph H. Wroblewski n 1989.
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[Container ___, Folder ___ ] MS 4463 United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, Local 427 Records, Series II, Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, Ohio
United Food and Commercial Workers International Union
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.