Las Vegas, Nev.--A new merger, approved here this
afternoon by the simultaneous conventions of two unions,
will unite 320,000 workers across key sectors of American
industry.
"I am proud and honored that the members of the
United Paperworkers Intl. Union (UPIU) and the Oil,
Chemical and Atomic Workers Intl. Union (OCAW) have
joined forces in a strong new union," said Boyd Young,
until today president of the UPIU, and now the first
president of the merged organization.
The new union is called PACE, the Paper,
Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers Intl.
Union. "We chose this name because it represents all our
members, including those from the Allied Industrial
Workers (AIW)," said Young. The AIW merged into the UPIU
in 1994. "We intend to set the pace for organizing, a
progressive vision and international solidarity," he
said. "The members of this great new union deserve to be
and are prepared to be on the cutting edge as labor
advances into a new century. We must fight for our
future." OCAW President Robert Wages is now the executive
vice president of PACE. He will assume key
responsibilities in the union's organizing program and
will continue to coordinate national oil bargaining.
"When the merger discussions started with the UPIU,
President Young and I committed to a basic premise," said
Wages. "We were not interested in merging for the sake of
being larger; we were interested in creating a new, more
powerful and progressive union prepared to do the work
our membership expects."
Both officers praised the work of the merger
committees that created the new union's framework. "It
was a fair and equitable process in which the larger
union, the UPIU, never once played the game of 'size
dictates results,'" said Wages.
"It was a strenuous, but fruitful process," said
PACE Vice President Glenn Goss, who represents Indiana,
Illinois and Lower Michigan on the new union's executive
board. "Everyone worked together to get through the
knotty organizational issues, and craft a new structure
that will work well for both memberships," he said. Goss
chaired the UPIU side of the merger effort.
The UPIU and the AIW bring PACE members in pulp,
paper, automobile parts, appliance manufacturing and a
wide variety of other industries. Cement workers from the
Independent Workers of North America affiliated with the
UPIU in 1991. The OCAW's contribution includes members in
oil, chemical manufacturing, nuclear energy,
pharmaceuticals and a variety of related industries.