Utility Workers Union of America. Local 1-2 (New York, N.Y.)

The history of Local 1-2 properly begins with the Utility Workers Organizing Committee (UWOC) established by the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) 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 Consolidated Edison 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 International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (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 the 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, and the Brotherhood eventually came to represent all unionized workers at ConEd.

In 1945 the Brotherhood was invited to become part of the CIO's Utility Workers Organizing Committee. In 1946, with more than 180 locals organized nationwide, the UWOC transformed itself into the Utility Workers Union of America, CIO. Three of the top officers of the new international union came from New York's Local 1-2. The first administration of Local 1-2 remained in office for 17 years, with Paddy McGrath and Andrew McMann as president and business agent. In the mid-1950s challenges to the incumbents were mounted by a number of groups, including the United Social Club (Joe Murray), the Security party (Jim Geoghegan), the Rider Avenue Committee, and "Steam." In 1958, in a marathon caucus meeting at the New Yorker Hotel, the challengers finally got together and fielded a joint slate known as "The Coalition." In an election organized by the American Arbitration Association, 16,000 out of 20,000 eligible voters participated. The ballots took several days to count and the opposition won by a substantial margin. Despite a number of disputes and defections within the Coalition alliance, the new administration managed to remain in office until 1990, when a new insurgent group, the Justice Party turned them out after a hard-fought campaign. A new round of by-laws changes resulted in the victory of the Justice Party, and its presidential candidate, John Goodman, in September 1990.

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