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 International Union of Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers. Local 463 (New York, N.Y.)

Dates:

Active 1951

Active 1985

History notes:

Local 463 of the International Union of Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers was founded in 1951 by James Trenz, a business agent of Local 1227 of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America. Local 1227 was an amalgamated local, representing 37 shops and about 2300 workers.

After a bitterly contested local election in November 1950 between Communist and non-Communist UE leadership, Trenz led a protest of the Local's position on the United States' role in the Korean War. Trenz had formed a strong group who wanted a peace resolution which would condemn Communist China's invasion of Korea, while the Communist-controlled Executive Board pushed for an anti-U.S. government peace resolution. The issue was debated throughout the shops of the local. At the January 10 Stewards' Council meeting, a close vote was taken on these resolutions, in favor of the anti-Communist position. Rather than permit Trenz to bring the resolution to the membership for a vote, he was suspended as business agent at an emergency Executive Board meeting two hours before the mass local membership meeting of January 24, 1951, where both the resolution and Trenz's suspension were to be voted on by the membership. Physically barred from the local meeting hall, he and 500 supporters met for a protest rally at a nearby park that evening. They voted to disaffiliate from the UE and return to the mainstream of labor in the CIO. Trenz received bids for affiliation from the IUE, District 50 of the United Mineworkers, the United Auto Workers, and the Transport Workers' Union.

The next day 17 shop chairmen of Local 1227 met with representatives of the IUE-CIO to begin the disaffiliation process and reconstitute the local. They immediately received an IUE charter. Within a week, 20 shops representing 1100 members of Local 1227 came into the new Local 463 of the IUE. Several Shops from UE Local 430 disaffiliated from the UE at around the same time to join Local 463.

With the next three years, local membership tripled, as 463 quickly organized other unorganized electronic, machine and sheet metal shops in the New York metropolitan area. Its largest contracts were negotiated with the 1200-member Neptune Meter and 800-member Micamold companies; but most of its shops were smaller. At its height, during the Korean War, Local 463 had 3,500 members.

Pioneering in workers' education in the IUE, Local 463 inaugurated the first leadership training courses for shop stewards and active members in 1953. These have continued to the present. In 1955 Local 463 established the first amalgamated-type pension in the IUE, a plan which arranged for retirement benefits for employees of small firms and which provided severance pay for members who left the shop before they were vested. Portable pension credits were provided for members who went from one shop to another within the plan. In 1956 it became the first union in the country to fully disclose to its members and to employers the financial details of its benefit plans at an open meeting. An important effect of Local 463's trend-setting Full Disclosure policies was that employers offered less resistance to increased welfare costs in negotiations, because they had confidence in the integrity of the administration of the plans.

During the 1960's membership grew and benefits continued to improve; 463 members were the first of any industrial union, working as production employees to win a drug plan. Civil rights rose on the agenda during thei period, too. In 1960 the IUE awarded the local its Human Rights Awards, and in 1962 it received the NAACP Brooklyn Chapter's award for the union with the best record in the field of human relations. Other philanthropic activities of "The Local With Heart" included the establishment of the William Grogan Scholarship, which provided college scholarships for children of Local 463 members, the sponsorship of a Boy Scout troop in South Jamaica (Troop 463), support of the United Negro College Fund, the Deborah Hospital and many Queens area community activities. In 1962 the local bought its own headquarters building on Parsons Boulevard in Jamaica, Queens. The local received national recognition in 1965 when U.S. Secretary of Labor Willard Wirtz appointed Trenz to the Minimum Wage Board for the electronics industry in Puerto Rico.

During 1965-66 the IUE waged an epic trusteeship battle with the local over Trenz's support of IUE founder James B. Cary, who lost a presidential election to Paul Jennings. In retaliation for that support, Jennings granted a seperate local charter to a breakaway group at Neptune Meter and engaged in an NLRB election raid against Local 463 at that company. The result was two IUE locals at Neptune Meter, #306 for the Factory, and #463 for the Foundry. In February 1966, the IUE ordered a trusteeship of Local 463, but the Trustee was not able to take over. Instead, rank and file members came out to guard the local headquarters for six days and nights, physically preventing the trusteeship from taking effect. The battle raged in the courts with the local obtaining a State Supreme Court injunction against the IUE, and IUE remanding to the Federal Court to enforce the trusteeship. An immediate trial date was set. Local 463 threatened to disaffiliate, but a compromise was reached the day before the federal court trial was to begin with the aid and intervention of TWU Vice-President William Grogan, in March 1966. The trusteeship was lifted, and all charges against the local and Trenz by the IUE were withdrawn. The Foundry and Factory workers were consolidated in Local 306 at Neptune Meter; Trenz stepped down as President of Local 463 and took on the position of Business Manager. By December 1966, Trenz had been re-elected and re-installed as the President of Local 463.

The local continued to gain stature in the labor movement with the election of Trenz to the New York City AFL-CIO Central Labor Council Executive Board in 1973. In 1977 President Trenz was elected a member of the IUE International Executive Board as the founding chairman of the Amalgamated Locals Conference Board comprised of 50 IUE locals nationally, the second largest group of the IUE. He continued to hold both the positions until his death in 1991. As a representative of the IUE and the Central Labor Council he participated in trade union missions to four countries in Africa, Japan, the Phillipines, Australia, Malaysia and Israel.

The recessions of the 1970s hit the light manufacturing sector of New York City severely. In 1972 there were strikes at four of Local 463's shops, an unusually high number, and wages and fringes became increasingly difficult to negotiate successfully. Imports, runaway ships, layoffs, and plant closings have all taken their toll on Local 463; yet even during the recession of the late 1970s and early 1980s, the local managed to fight concessions and make some gains in its wage packages.

From the description of Minutes [microform], 1951-1985. (New York University). WorldCat record id: 82756973