1940s UAW-CIO Union Campaign Jugate Pin Left-Wing Faction Candidates - Communist

Description

Rare early 1940s (c. 1940-1943) union election campaign cello pinback (1.5" diameter) for UAW International Union Executive Board members George Addes and Richard Frankensteen. Excellent condition, no corrosion on metal components. Review scan carefully, sold as is.
Addes and Frankensteen were leaders the UAW Left-Center faction that included auto worker members and supporters of the US Communist Party (CP).
Both Addes and Frankensteen were active in the formation of the United Auto Workers Union. Addes was active in the Toledo, Ohio Willy’s Overland auto workers’ Federal Labor Union (AFL) and the 1934 Auto Lite strike. Addes served 11 terms as the elected UAW IU Secretary-Treasurer (1936-1947). Frankensteen was first elected to the UAW Executive Board in 1935 and held prominent positions in the CIO. Roosevelt appointed Frankensteen to the WW II National War Labor Board and the National War Production Board.
The Addes-Frankensteen faction coalesced in 1939 during the inter-union struggle to defeat Homer Martin, which Reuther also supported. In the aftermath the Addes-Frankensteen and Reuther factions fought a bitter battles for control of the union. The CP’s erratic changes in policy dictated by the Soviet Union provided ample ammunition for the Reuther faction which red-baited Addes, and Frankensteen - though they were never members of the CP - their supporters. In 1943 Frankensteen ran for UAW VP and lost to Reuther and withdrew from UAW politics. In 1947, the year the UAW began purging the CP-left, Addes lost the election for Secretary-Treasurer and withdrew from UAW politics.