The United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing, and Allied Workers of America (UCAPAWA) was a labor union formed in 1937 under the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). Established in Denver, Colorado, the union sought to address the concerns of those working in the agricultural industry during the Great Depression. Membership consisted of Mexican, black, Asian, and white food processing workers. It was one of the first unions to allow women to hold high-ranking positions. The intention was to build a national, decentralized labor organization with power flowing from the bottom up. Although it was short-lived, the UCAPAWA influenced the lives of many workers and had a major impact for both women and minority workers in the union. In 1944, the UCAPAWA changed its name to Food, Tobacco, Agricultural, and Allied Workers (FTA) and moved its headquarters to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
History The UCAPAWA was the result of a revolt in the American Federation of Labor (AFL). UCAPAWA was organized by Donald Henderson, an economics professor at Columbia University and Communist Party member. 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 CIO in 1937 after having been abandoned by the AFL. Unable to persuade the AFL to charter an international union of agricultural workers and increasingly drawn to the 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 working on sugar beet farms 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 outside organizations such as the John Steinbeck Committee to Aid Agricultural Organization, the J. Lubin Society, the Spanish-Speaking People's Congress, and, on occasion, local clergy. A commitment to labor 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. STFU and UCAPAWA differed over a fundamental issue: Whether agricultural workers could best be served by a protest organization or a labor 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 STFU and UCAPAWA was that STFU wanted a centralized government while UCAPAWA believed in a more decentralized system. After STFU departed, 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. UCAPAWA distanced themselves farther 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 increasing its scope from fields to fisheries, canneries, processing plants, and even tobacco manufacturing workers.
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