Remember CIO, AFL, and AFL-CIO?
Retiree Alfred A Blevins can tell members about the
AFL, the CIO, and the AFL-CIO. He has been a member of all of them. He was also
a UAW member during the time that we were not affiliated with the Texas nor
Dallas federations.
Blevins finished his World War II duty on September
March 25, 1946. He farmed 4 years, then went to work for Convair in Ft Worth.
The International Association of Machinists (AFL) organized workers there. On
November 27, 1950, Blevins came to Chance Vought for the higher pay. He joined
the union a week later. "I was active within a year of the time I got
here," he said at the March 11 Retiree Luncheon at our hall.
When the American Federation of Labor and the
Congress of Industrial Organizations decided to unite, the merger wasn't always
peaceful. Blevins recalls a scuffle that took place when delegates were going
to a Labor Council meeting in Dallas. They were arguing over a candidate for
the job of treasurer. "I had to keep a man from jumping on to a very good
friend of mine, Everett Day. Everett had a disability that a lot of people
didn't know. He had a plate in his head, and one blow might have killed him. I
had to step in between them."
The AFL-CIO was born in 1955, but UAW President Walter Reuther took
our union out of the federation soon afterward. Blevins recalls, "I think
around 1958, they had a big breakup. Walter Reuther moved us all out from
AFL." Before many years had passed, the UAW re-joined the national
federation, but Texans did not rejoin at the state and local levels until the
1990s.
Says Blevins, "We're all together again and I
think we have a good strong union." As for a summary of the past, present,
and future, Blevins said, "Things got better for quite some time, but
we're going to have to keep organizing, and keep fighting. We'll have to keep
things going as it should be. We want to work for a living, but they're trying
to take it all away from us."