Ben Gold - Merger With The Meat Cutters and Retirement

Merger With The Meat Cutters and Retirement

Gold was re-elected as IFLWU president in May 1954 despite his conviction for perjury. But the problems created by the Taft-Hartley Act, expulsion from the CIO, and prosecutions of the IFLWU's top leadership led Gold to seek merger with another union to strengthen the union's finances and collective bargaining power. A month after his re-election, Gold announced that he was discussing merger with the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen of North America, a labor union affiliated with the AFL that represented retail butchers and packinghouse workers. AFL leaders, however, expressed strong reservation against bringing the "Red-led" union into the federation.

Although the merger talks had moved forward aggressively, Ben Gold retired as IFLWU president on October 3, 1954, in order to remove AFL objections to the merger.

Gold's resignation at age 56 provide crucial in winning AFL approval for the merger. A new effort to merge the IFLWU and Meat Cutters began the day after his retirement. Eventually, the merger was consummated in 1955 after the AFL announced it would bar the IFLWU from joining the federation directly but not from merging with an AFL affiliate. The fur workers' division underwent additional purges of communist leaders and members after the merger.

Ben Gold spent the rest of his life in Florida. He published his memoirs in 1984. He died on July 24, 1985 at his home in North Miami Beach, Florida.