Interational Fishermen and Allied Workers of America records, circa 1938-1953

Summary

Creators:

International Fishermen and Allied Workers of America

Abstract:

Records of the International Fishermen and Allied Workers of America, a trade union on the Pacific Coast of the United States. The collection documents the activities of the union from its founding in 1939 through the early 1950s.

Extent:

Number of containers: 19 cartons, 2 cardfile boxes, 1 oversize box (linear feet: 26)

Language:

English.

Background

Scope and content:

The records of the International Fishermen and Allied Workers of America union document the activities and relationships of the union from the late 1930s through the early 1950s. The collection is organized into twelve series: correspondence; minutes; agreements; grievances; disputes; legal matters; membership and elections; sardine and other fish studies; publications, notices, reports, and press releases; financial; and Food, Tobacco, Agricultural and Allied Workers of American Union (FTA). The correspondence series consists of correspondence with the union's various locals; correspondence to and from union officials and offices; correspondence to and from other unions; correspondence to and from Congress of Industrial Organization officers and offices; and other correspondence with assorted boards, committees and offices. Minutes documents meetings of a range of boards, committees and councils though most are from Local 34 in San Francisco. Included in the Legal Matters series are materials on the IFAWA's anti-trust case (1946-1952). Membership records include lists of members and an index card file of members. The collection also includes (in the Food, Tobacco, Agricultural and Allied Workers of America series) materials relating to the battles between the Congress of Industrial Organizations and the American Federation of Labor over cannery workers in the mid-1940s. There are also items relating to disputes between the FTA and IFAWA in 1945. Financial records consist mainly of fish market account files and assessment files (primarily for Local 34).

Biographical / historical:

The International Fishermen and Allied Workers of America (IFAWA) was a trade union on the Pacific Coast of the United States active from 1939 until the late 1950s. IFAWA grew out of an earlier amalgamated fishermen's union, the United Fishermen's Union (UFU), which was established in 1937 as an affiliate of the Congress of Industrial Organizations. In May of 1939, the UFU and three other CIO-affiliated fishermen's unions merged to form the International Fishermen and Allied Workers of America. IFAWA was also CIO-affiliated and its emergence was spurred by the rise of industrial fishing (with a focus on canning) and by a national movement of industrial unionism during the 1930s. IFAWA was one of many unions representing different kinds of workers on the West Coast's waterfront, a center of radical unionism during the 1930s and 1940s. IFAWA brought to fruition the idea of a Pacific coast union that would represent all workers from catch to cannery in the fisheries industries in California, Oregon, Washington, and Alaska. For the first time, fisheries workers joined together across the craft boundaries that had dominated West Coast fishermen's organizing since the late-nineteenth century. At its peak, IFAWA represented approximately 30,000 workers. IFAWA's early years coincided with World War II, which brought challenges in the form of changing demographics, the drafting of many of the union's members into the military, and increasing suspicion of the union's Communist Party ties. In 1950, IFAWA became one of eleven unions expelled from the Congress of Industrial Organizations, in part because of its connections to the Communist Party. During the same year, IFAWA merged with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union.

Acquisition information:

The International Fishermen and Allied Workers of America records were gifted to the Bancroft Library by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union in 1973.

Physical location:

For current information on the location of these materials, please consult the Library's online catalog.

Rules or conventions:

Finding aid prepared using Describing Archives: a Content Standard

Location of this collection:

UC Berkeley, Bancroft Library

University of California, Berkeley, The Bancroft Library

Berkeley, CA 94720-6000, US

Contact:

510-642-6481

bancref-library@berkeley.edu

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