Америка Құрама Штаттарындағы шегіршік өндірушілер кәсіби одағының тарихы

Former trade union of the United States

The Journeymen Cigar Makers' International Union of America (CMIU) was a labor union established in 1864 that represented workers in the cigar industry. The CMIU was part of the American Federation of Labor from 1887 until its merger in 1974.

The economic crisis of 1877 was very nearly fatal to the organization, with a coordinated lockout by the employers' association of cigar manufacturers putting 7,000 workers out on the street in a lockout lasting four months. The American Federation of Labor chartered the Cigar Makers in 1887. George W. Perkins became president of the CMIU in 1892, a post he held until 1927. Perkins disdain for machine made cigars and manufacture was reflected in his dogged refusal to extend CMIU membership to the semi skilled and unskilled workers employed in machine cigar factories throughout his term as president. As of 1925, the CMIU included 13,463 men and 3,186 women out of an American national work force in the industry of 28,293 men and 50,648 women. Of some 10,320 cigar making shops known to the union, an impressive 7,180 used union labor, but of these 3,246 consisted of shops in which the owner was the only worker employed. This policy was sometimes openly defied by union locals, however. While the CMIU pressed for higher wages, shorter hours, better working conditions, and the right of collective bargaining, it restricted its organizing efforts to the skilled cigar roller or craftsman, requiring factory owners to reject any production of cigars by machine or to use non union semi skilled or unskilled labor, i. e. a closed shop.

After 1880, Cigar manufacturers who negotiated labor contracts with the CMIU affixed blue labels to boxes of "union made" cigars made exclusively by a "First Class Workman", i. e. hand made. Previously, local chapters issued their own stamps including white labels, used by the Cigar Makers' Association of the Pacific Coast to show that their cigars were made by white labor, in response to the growing use of low wage, Chinese immigrant labor. In 1875, the cigar makers' local in St Louis tried to encourage consumers to buy union made cigars by using a red label. The CMIU created a standard blue "union made" label in 1880 to reflect the fact that the cigars inside were made by a skilled labor union member. Union stamps underwent frequent changes and are an excellent help to collectors in the dating of cigar boxes. A "Sept. 1880" date was added top center to the label design in 1888 and appears on all CMIU cigar (not stogie) issues until 1974.

About one half of all cigar workers were represented by the CMIU in 1916, when its membership peaked at 53,000 members. In the end, the decisive blow to cigar maker unions came from technology and changing consumer preferences. As early as 1880, continued strikes, walkouts, and the steadily rising costs of labor and tobacco leaf caused U. S. tobacco companies to invest in mechanized methods of producing cigarettes and cigars. The first cigarette rolling machine was introduced in 1880 by James Albert Bonsack, while the cigar making machine first appeared in 1889. As demand for cigarettes increased, consumption of hand rolled cigars declined, which directly affected CMIU members. Mechanization and unskilled cigar workers (known as "bunch breakers") increasingly replaced skilled cigar workers after World War I. Strangely, George Perkins and the CMIU leadership declined to organize semi skilled and unskilled machine workers despite overwhelming evidence that traditional cigar making was in steep decline; an estimated 56,000 jobs were lost between 1921 and 1935. Scores of union factories went out of business, while the remainder declared an open shop. By 1928, the CMIU lost much of its influence; the average CMIU member was now sixty four years old. In that year, CMIU's leadership finally agreed to unionize machine cigar workers and permit the union label on machine finished cigars, but it was too late. The Great Depression resulted in additional industry cost cutting. By 1933, CMIU membership had declined to 15,000 members, many of them unemployed. After World War II, the consolidation of cigar manufacturing in the United States continued; many of the remaining larger manufacturing concerns moved cigar production to Central America and South America, which only accelerated the loss of union jobs. In 1974, the remaining 2,000 members of the CMIU voted to merge with the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union.