ABSTRACT
The Independent Union of All Workers, formed in Austin, Minnesota, was the brainchild of former Wobbly Frank Ellis, a labor organizer and packinghouse worker at the local Hormel plant. When Ellis wanted to turn Hormel’s company town into a union city, he encountered the same problems that had dogged unionists in meatpacking and mass production industries since the late nineteenth century. He faced a politically powerful anti-union employer, a work force divided by skill, ethnicity, race and gender, a history of failed organizing and broken strikes, and a local government hostile to labor. Nonetheless, Ellis managed to organize not just the Hormel meatpacking plant but most of the workers of Austin, Minnesota, in the depth of the Great Depression. This organizing feat was secured by the growth and stability of union power and sustained gains in wages, working conditions, and benefits during World War II. 1
