United Public Workers of America

United Public Workers of America
FoundedMay 1946
DissolvedFebruary 1953
Headquarters13 Astor Place, New York City, New York
Location
Members
100,000 in 1946
(claimed; at its height)[1][2]
Key people
Abram Flaxer
AffiliationsCongress of Industrial Organizations (until February 1950);
None (February 1950-February 1953)

The United Public Workers of America (1946–1952) was an American labor union representing federal, state, county, and local government employees. The union challenged the constitutionality of the Hatch Act of 1939, which prohibited federal executive branch employees from engaging in politics.[3] In United Public Workers of America v. Mitchell, 330 U.S. 75 (1947), the Supreme Court of the United States upheld the Hatch Act, finding that its infringement on the Constitutional rights was outweighed by the need to end political corruption.[4] The union's leadership was Communist, and in a famous purge the union was ejected from its parent trade union federation, the Congress of Industrial Organizations, in 1950.[5]

The union is sometimes confused with the United Federal Workers of America (a predecessor union) and the United Office and Professional Workers of America (UOPWA) (a union of white-collar, private-sector office workers which also belonged to the Congress of Industrial Organizations).

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