Utility Workers Union of America. Local 1-2.

The history of Local 1-2 properly begins with the Utility Workers Organizing Committee (UWOC) established by the Congress of Industrial Organizations in 1938. Previous practice within the industry had been to have company unions, easily controlled by management. Organizing was facilitated in the New York area by a merger of older local companies (New York Edison, Bronx Gas, the New Amsterdam Company, Central Union Gas, Northern Gas and others) into the Consolidated Edison Company (ConEd). One year after the merger the AFL-affiliated International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) obtained the right to represent ConEd employees, and soon issued charters to each of the seven company unions.

In 1940, after a bitter intra-union dispute in the IBEW between the newly organized utility workers and electrical workers, the ConEd employees pulled out of the international union. The seven utility locals constituted themselves as the Brotherhood of Consolidated Edison Employees. As a newly independent utility workers union, the body took the name Local 1-2, representing the separate identities of two major categories, plant and clerical employees, within ConEd. The governing Council of the Brotherhood included representatives of both categories of workers. The Brotherhood eventually came to represent all unionized workers at ConEd.

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