1948 Joint Council Dining Car Employees #582, Left-Wing Black Union Civil Rights

Description

September 1948 Dues Pin
Joint Council of Dining Car Employees, AFL, Local 582
Rare 7/8" cello pin, manufactured by Olivier Printing Co., 1121 Mission St., SF 3 (Printed along the lower-left rim of the pin.)
Condition: Very good. The print bleeding occurred during manufacturing. Review the photos which
show a slight bulge on the right side of the pin (left-side on reverse image). Sold as is.
Local 582 was a Los Angeles based affiliate of the Hotel & Restaurant Workers International Union, AFL, formed in May 1926, as the Dining Car Cooks and Waiters Union. Local 582 represented railroad dining car workers on the Southern Pacific Lines, including Coffee Shop Cars in the Sunset Limited (New Orleans to Los Angeles) and the Imperial (Chicago to LA). Local 582 was active in community and civil rights causes in Los Angeles.
(See Union Style: Black Labor in White Coats,
Opportunity: Journal of Negro Life, July 1931.)
The Joint Council of Dining Car Employees, affiliated with the Hotel and Restaurant Employees and Bartenders Alliance International Union (HRE). Racist hiring practices during these limited rail job opportunities for Black and other minority workers to 'service' occupations, such as dining and Pullman car work.
During the 1930 and 40s the Joint Council's leadership was left-wing. Salon Bell, Communist Party member and civil rights activist, was the chairman of the Joint Council of Dining Car Employees until 1947 when the HRE  fired him for him Communist Party membership. Ishmael Flory, Joint Council Secretary-Treasurer, was another African-American Communist Party member and civil rights activist.
Local 582, Dining Car Cooks and Waiters Union was formed in Los Angeles at the Bronx Hotel on May 4, 1926 (See Union Style: Black Labor in White Coats, Opportunity: Journal of Negro Life, July 1931)