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The United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing, and Allied Workers of America (UCAPAWA) was a labor union formed in 1937 and incorporated large numbers of Mexican, black, Asian, and Anglo food processing workers under its banner. The founders envisioned a national decentralized labor organization with power flowing from the bottom up. Although it was a short-lived, the UCAPAWA influenced the lives of many workers and had a major impact for both women and minority workers in the union. ==History== The United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing Allied Workers of America (or UCAPAWA) was an organization formed after the American Federation of Labor (AFL) ignored several delegate members plea to have better working conditions for farm and food processing workers. At its head stood an intense and energetic organizer named Donald Henderson who was a young economics instructor at Columbia University and a member of the Communist party. Henderson, who was also one of the founders of the People’s Congress, noted the importance this union placed on popularizing the conditions of black and Mexican American workers and organizing them as a way to improve their social and economic situation. Henderson declared that the “International Office was sufficiently concerned with the conditions facing . . . the Negro people and the Mexican and Spanish American peoples.” Henderson observed that both minority groups were deprived of civil rights, exploited to the point of starvation, kept in decayed housing, denied educational opportunities, and in Henderson’s view, “blocked from their own cultural development.” Henderson eventually, as President of the union, established it as the agricultural arm of Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) in 1937 after having been abandoned by the AFL.〔Morris, Joshua. Shortest Straw: CPUSA in Labor Organizing, Master's Thesis. Published by CSU Pomona Library, June 2010〕 Unable to persuade the AFL to charter an international union of agricultural workers and increasingly drawn to the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) industrial union structure, Henderson and representatives from locals throughout the country met in Denver in July 1937 to form UCAPAWA, which promptly received a charter from the CIO. Part of the reason behind its founding was to address the concerns of agricultural laborers and their counterparts in packing and canning during the Great Depression. The UCAPAWA represented multi-cultural workers from Mexicans in sugar beet to black sharecroppers in Arkansas and Missouri. They were also very involved in Asian-American workers such as Filipino, Chinese and Japanese cannery workers in Washington. UCAPAWA was particularly strong among Mexican and Mexican American workers. In 1940, the ''San Francisco News'' called UCAPAWA the "fastest growing agricultural union in California", and attributed its success to its appeal to Mexican and Mexican American workers. The union was also supported by such outside organizations as the John Steinbeck Committee to Aid Agricultural Organization, the J. Lubin Society, the Spanish-speaking Peoples Congress, and on occasion, local clergy. A commitment to trade union democracy, shared by both national leaders and regular members provided the underlying philosophy for union endeavors. Some leaders of the UCAPAWA saw themselves as participants of a radical culture and political projects. When the UCAPAWA entered an affiliation the Arkansas-based Southern Tenant Farmers Union (STFU) there was controversy regarding political associations. Infighting between Communist party leaders and the local Socialists who served as the organization’s principal administrators, as well as personality and ideological conflicts marred the alliance from the start. According to the both the STFU and UCAPAWA differed over a fundamental issue: Whether agricultural workers could best be served by a protest organization or a trade union. STFU thought that sharecroppers and tenant farmers could not be organized because they were uneducated and too poor. The UCAPAWA disagreed and argued that agricultural workers could be taught the rudimentary procedures for running the locals and that union members had to support their own organization. Another difference between the STFU and UCAPAWA was that the STFU wanted a centralized government while the UCAPAWA believed in a more decentralized system. After the STFU departed, the UCAPAWA’s constitution guaranteed local autonomy and provided for local control of at least half of all dues collected. The STFU dispute was a turning point for UCAPAWA. Agricultural unions did not have collective bargaining rights and often faced local hostility. As a result, UCAPAWA shifted its focus from the fields to processing plants. The UCAPAWA distanced themselves further from conventional unions and organizations by representing working classes generally ignored by traditional craft affiliates. Union officers deliberately enlisted black, Mexican, Asian and female labor organizers in order to launch campaigns aimed at minorities and women. UCAPAWA was spreading their wings from fields to fisheries, canneries, processing plants and even tobacco manufacturing workers. The UCAPAWA was fast becoming one of the more influential unions in America and when the 1939 Madera Cotton Strike happened the UCAPAWA proved they were a force to be reckoned with. Besides UCAPAWA proving themselves a strong union they were also beginning to acquire a reputation as a Communist Party (CP). While some truly believe the demise of the UCAPAWA was caused by the involvement with the Radical Party, many members of UCAPAWA believed themselves to be more liberal than anything. The argument of whether the union leaders were supporters of Communism set off an argument between many local leaders. Vicki L. Ruiz makes a very important statement in her book She writes that “UCAPAWA certainly had a leftist stance, though the nature and extent of its leftist ideology will continue to be debated.” Despite their roots or political stance, the UCAPAWA had shown that it could organize the nation’s most vulnerable workers. It also showed that women and minority groups were capable of playing an important role in the labor movement. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing, and Allied Workers of America」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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