Bakery, Confectionery, and Tobacco Workers International Union. Local 3 (Long Island City, N.Y.)

Bakers Union Local 3 was established in 1955 with the merger of locals 1, 3, 17, 164, 288, and 579. During the Bakery and Confectionery Workers International Union Convention of 1951, a resolution was passed to implement the merger of all New York bakery locals. Frequent jurisdictional disputes between rival locals were undermining the collective strength of bakers within the industry. Over a dozen local unions representing the interests of workers in the baking industry in New York took part in merger discussions sponsored by the International, but by 1955 only six of the participating unions consented to merge.

Beginning in the 1850s, New York played an important role in the evolution of the unionization of the trade. Owning to the large immigrant presence in New York, unions were originally established according to nationality. The German Bakers, the Jewish Bread Bakers, the French-Italian Bakers, the Spanish Bakers, among others, each existed as separate, independently organized entities. The result of these nationality-organized unions led to a frequent overlapping of jurisdictions within the Greater New York area. As early as 1937, a conference of the Bakery Workers International Union made an effort to address ongoing jurisdiction disputes by encouraging these disparate organizations to unify. Over the course of the next decade a series of mergers took place but nothing compared with the magnitude of the creation of Local 3 in 1955. With its establishment, Local 3 became a dominate force in the baking industry in New York and an important presence on the national front.

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