District 65, United Automobile Workers

David Paskin

DISTRICT 65, UNITED AUTOMOBILE WORKERS. The origins of District 65 of the United Automobile Workers can be traced to the Wholesale Drygoods Workers Union (WDGU), organized in September 1933 at H. Eckstein, a dry goods warehouse on New York’s Lower East Side. The union was founded by male Jewish workers led by Arthur Osman, a salesperson at the firm. At the same time, textile warehouse workers were organizing in New York’s garment center. Led by a young radical, David Livingston, their militant activities won them a Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) charter from Sidney Hillman as Local 65 of the Textile Workers Organizing Committee. In August WDGU merged with the smaller CIO Textile House Workers to become the Wholesale and Warehouse Employees Union, Local 65, CIO, and membership began to increase dramatically. In September 1937 Local 65 came under the jurisdiction of the newly chartered CIO national union, United Retail and Wholesale Employees of America (URWEA).

The beginning of World War II ended the first phase in the union’s growth. Along with other CIO unions, 65 adopted the “no strike” pledge and vigorously supported the war effort. The war period was characterized by a dramatic shift in union tactics. Instead of confrontation the union turned to the War Labor Board to resolve conflicts. More than 10,000 members served in the armed forces or joined war-related industries, depleting the ranks of the union pioneers. Women became a majority and took greater leadership roles.

From the outset the new union had combined an ideological emphasis on democratic, mass participation and left-wing politics. Local 65 maintained very close ties to the Communist Party. The union generally followed Party policies until 1950. What distinguished Local 65 from many other left-wing unions was the consistent effort to generate support from the rank and file for these policies.

Between 1937 and 1948, Local 65, the largest local in URWEA, was at the center of a group of left-wing locals in New York City that were locked in a bitter conflict with their International. Local 65’s influence far exceeded its size and its importance in the city economy. Particularly close cooperation developed between Local 65 and the Department Store Workers Union.

Differences between the left-wing New York locals and the national leadership, including a dispute over compliance with the Taft-Hartley Act, led to a split in the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Employees of America in September 1948. Eight of the largest New York locals, representing 30,000 workers (including the department stores), seceded to form the Distributive Trade Council with Arthur Osman as president.

In February 1950, the Distributive Workers Union (DWU), a new international union outside the CIO, was formed by the dissident locals. Osman headed the International and David Livingston became president of Local 65. In 1950, DWU leadership signed the non-Communist affidavits required by the Taft-Hartley law to minimize the danger of raiding by CIO locals protected by the National Labor Relations Board.

In 1950, the DWU merged with the remnants of the United Office and Professional Workers of America (UOPWA) and Food, Tobacco, and Agricultural Workers Union (FTA), both expelled from the CIO for Communist domination, to form the Distributive, Processing, and Office Workers of America (DPOWA). This grouping may have been an effort to build a left-wing alternative to the CIO. Local 65, now District 65, DPOWA, became the dominant force within the new entity. Conflict quickly developed between the merged unions. The UOPWA and FTA membership had been decimated, and they provided little in actual resources or members. Additionally, there was a clash of organizational cultures between the rank-and-file character of Local 65 and the “top down” structure of the UOPWA.

In early 1952, District 65 openly broke with the Communist Party over the issue of reunification with the CIO. A short internal struggle for control of the union ended with the defeat of Communist candidates in the union-wide election in June 1952. The contest was never in doubt. Most union staff and active members, many of whom were Communists, chose to remain with the union rather than continue to ally themselves with the increasingly faction-ridden and vulnerable Party.

At the same time, the union was being investigated for its left-wing activities by a federal grand jury (April 1952) and congressional committees (July 1953). With the approval of the membership, the national leaders refused to answer questions regarding their political beliefs or associations.

With the effective demise of the Left, District 65 sought affiliation with the CIO. The DPOWA rejoined the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) in 1954, becoming District 65, RWDSU, CIO, with David Livingston as president.

Following the merger District 65 turned inward. The union’s priorities became the efficient servicing of the membership, consolidation of new industries (direct mail), and new organization. With a strong and viable base in New York, the union expanded to New Jersey and then nationally. The union integrated its leadership ranks, advancing Black leaders to important organizational positions to represent the shift in the racial composition of the membership.

District 65 remained active in progressive politics, particularly civil rights. The union provided money and early support for Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. Cleveland Robinson, secretary-treasurer of District 65, was a national coordinator for the March on Washington in 1963. Opposition to the war in Vietnam led District 65 to become one of the founding unions in Labor for Peace. In that capacity David Livingston traveled to Hanoi in 1969. The union’s consistent opposition to the conservative policies of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations heralded the entry of “sixties issues” into the labor movement even while it supported the Democratic Party.

In 1969, District 65 again disaffiliated from the RWDSU over differences on civil rights, foreign policy, and commitment to new organizing. It formed the Distributive Workers of America (DWA) with ten other seceding locals in seven states. Notably the Department Store Workers, with 10,000 members, refused to leave the International and ended their formal ties with District 65. As an independent Union the Distributive Workers began organizing new members to make up for the decline in its core industries primarily in white collar industries including - Columbia University; editors at Harper & Row, Random House and Simon & Shuster; the Village Voice; The Museum of Modern Art.

The new DWA joined with the United Automobile Workers (UAW) and the Teamsters to form the short-lived Alliance for Labor Action. The DWA remained unaffiliated until 1981, when the DWA formally affiliated with the UAW to form District 65, UAW. In 1987 District 65 became the TOP Department of the UAW focusing on technical, office and professional workers. In the 1990s, owing to financial problems and a desire for greater organizational rationality, the various units in District 65 became separate UAW Locals or merged other UAW locals and District 65 ceased to exist as an independent organizational entity.

District 65's complex organizational history reflected its efforts to actualize its deep leftwing / anti-capitalist beliefs in the context of the Cold War, the anti-communism of the AFL-CIO, and the deindustrializing of the New York City economy. Few American unions have so readily disaffiliated, merged, reorganized or remained independent in the effort to find a successful strategy to retain its founding political values.

For a relatively small union that no longer exists as an independent union, the history of 65 remained important for several reasons: the consistent effort to organize unskilled and low wage workers in non-traditional industries; the commitment to organize and advance Black workers and other people of color; the priority for the union to advocate “political” issues at the same time that it advocated economic gains; the creation of a comprehensive union culture that sought to involve the members in all aspects of their life including recreation, healthcare, cultural activities and community organizations; the regular effort and rhetoric asserting the primacy of rank and file democracy and member participation; and finally, the destructive power of the State to curb the union’s militancy and innovations.

The union was always guided by the fundamental position that all workers can and should be organized regardless of their industry, particularly the unrepresented workers in unskilled low wage industries. Originally the union was seen as a “catch-all,” and it was not tied to a particular industry or trade. The internal organization by occupational lines, while necessary to preserve resources, was seen only as a tactic and that the long-term goal of the union was to encompass all workers wherever possible including small industries, warehouse workers, office workers and much later employees in higher education, publishing and cultural institutions.

The historic efforts to organize workers in predominately nonwhite majority industries, such as corrugated paper, was driven by their political analysis of the segregated structure of New York industries. The union also sought to integrate predominantly white industries that were already organized. However, if members were refused positions because of their race, seniority was abandoned, and employers were pressured to hire a member of color. Also, over time the union advanced Black members to leadership.

The union headquarters served as a cultural hub for members and left-wing activities from the 1940s to the 1960s. Members paid their dues, received health checkups, attended clubs, held shop meetings and relaxed in the union’s fully integrated night club. Creating a cultural space for lower-paid working-class members deeply bonded the members to the union, creating a unifying culture, and provided a laboratory for experimenting with innovative health and pension benefits.

For years the members elected their shop stewards and the delegate meetings and organizing drives were strong examples of the commitment to rank and file democracy and mass participation. Many locals that affiliated with District 65 in its later years were attracted to the historic commitment to democratic unionism. However, as 65 matured it became increasingly bureaucratic, and the rank and file ethic was practiced most effectively at the local level.

District 65 was subject to concerted attacks by the Federal government and the CIO which blunted its most radical positions and many committed activists chose to leave the union. In the 1950s the union was forced to make concessions in order to survive in face of raiding and lack of support during key strikes. The anti-communist attacks and the unwillingness to create leadership secession ultimately narrowed the union’s influence, and in the 1970s and 1980s and the union went into decline. In spite of the right-wing attacks, District 65 remained one of the most outspoken and progressive unions until its merger into the UAW. Many of the new locals in the UAW that had been part of District 65, particularly in universities and legal services, continued District 65’s militant and progressive history.

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District 65, United Automobile Workers

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