Insurance Workers of America Records

Unionism in the insurance industry, just as unionism in many blue-collar industries, had its birth in the depression years of the late thirties. Most of the insurance agents who became interested in unionism during this period Joined the United Office and Professional Workers of the C.I.O. This organization grew fairly rapidly and soon included about 40,000 insurance workers (90 percent of them agents) in its ranks. The association of the U.O.P.W.A. and the insurance workers is an important one which leaves its mark to this day. The U.O.P.W.A. was a left-wing union and was among the unions expelled by the C.I.O. in 1950 as communist-dominated.

Agents who didn't agree with the communistic orienta-tions of the U.O.P.W.A. experienced little success in making their voices heard in the running of the organization. Key party-liners occupied positions of power at conventions or other policy-making conclaves and stifled any and all opposition. Insurance agents, who are extroverts by nature, didn't appreciate this frustration of their leadership attempts by the U.O.P.W.A. leaders, and a revolution soon developed within the union. This movement eventually led to a complete break when the U.O.P.W.A. became obsessed with the party line to the exclusion of bargaining agree-ments.

When the insurance agents went to the C.I.O. seeking an organization free of the U.O.P.W.A. domination, they found a champion in the late Allan Haywood. This veteran union leader became the first chairman of the newly-formed Insurance and Allied Workers Organizing Committee in April of 1950. He became a sort of beloved patron saint of the organization. Harold Ash served as the Secretary-Treasurer until he resigned because of ill health in February 1952. Richard T. Leonard then filled the post and became Chairman when-Haywood's duties elsewhere required him to relinquish the Chairmanship. Leonard served as Chairman until the union's founding convention at Cleveland in 1953.

The new union started off with a handful of members and its future was clouded because of the great difficulty of re-organizing the scattered insurance workers. On March 12, 1951, it scored a major victory when it won nation-wide bargaining rights for 6,000 John Hancock agents. The union has had great battles with the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, the largest financial institution of its type in the world. It has succeeded in organizing Metropolitan agents in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Greater New York City.

A problem that has plagued the I.W.A. since the breakup of the U.O.P.W.A. in 195 has been the jurisdictional battles that have raged with the rival AFL union, the Insurance Agents International Union. The two organizations, saddled with insufficient membership spread all over the country, scrambled continually for the same workers, usually ex-U.O.P.W.A. remnants. A particularly strong blow to the I.W.A. occurred shortly after the disintegration of the U.O.P.W.A. when 9,000 organized agents of the Prudential Life Insurance Company left the C.I.O. and joined the I.A.I.U.

Eventually both unions saw the futility of such strife and a no-raiding agreement was proposed and signed even before the merger of the AFL-CIO. Shortly after this, in 1955, exploratory merger talks were begun between the two unions. Although these were unsuccessful, certain agreements were reached and a new era of non-interference began. Even though the actual merger attempts were thwarted by the sticky problem of voting methods at conventions, a merger in spirit took place. At the time of the writing of this history, the author, Mr. William A. Gillen, President of the I. W. A., predicted that the actual merger would take place in the immediate future.

Mr. Simon Helfgott started his career in the insurance industry as a debit insurance agent for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. He became one of the early members of the Insurance Workers, Local 30, New York. He later served on its executive board and became president in 1949. In 1950 when the local became an affiliate of the Insurance and Allied Workers Organizing Committee, Mr. Helfgott became a vice chairman of that organization. When the Insurance Workers of America was formed in 1952, he became its first vice president. Mr. Helfgott also served as president of the Industrial Insurance Employees Union, Local 1706, New York, affiliate of the I.W.A.

Excerpts from the history of the I.W.A. written by President William A. Gillen, April 26, 1957