Nine Years to Victory: Mexican Laborers and the United Railroad Workers of America Organizing Campaign, 1943-1952

Michael Calderon-Zaks, University of California, San Diego

This paper examines the role of the Congress of Industrial Organization’s (CIO) Railroad Workers of America (URRWA) and its campaign to organize Mexican workers on the railroads from the mid-1940s to the early 1950s. While prior campaigns to organize railroad workers as part of one big union were short-lived and failed, the URRWA represents a breakthrough that took nine years to complete (as well as one that became short-lived). Also examined were the changed structures that URRWA had in its favor in comparison to prior campaigns on the rails, as well as its own resources. Utilizing a content analysis of URRWA organizer reports, this paper argues that there was parity between Mexican, African-American, and White workers in their eagerness to join a union that was part of the CIO—its renown success in the steel industry gave it credibility that the strike-averse Railroad Brotherhoods didn’t have. URRWA’s appeal to workers wasn’t strictly work-related, it also campaigned to improve their housing, intersecting labor and community issues. In sum, a holistic approach was needed to win where prior organizing efforts lost. Unfortunately, even in victory, the outcomes were similar to other CIO experiences in that, despite the improved working conditions and higher wages, the division of labor in that organized industry remained segregated with black and brown workers remaining in more dangerous work settings.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 35. Labor Migrations in North America