Addie L. Wyatt - Meatpacking Industry and Union Work

Meatpacking Industry and Union Work

After her marriage Wyatt took a job in a Chicago meat-packing company in 1941 after failing to be hired as a typist because of her color. She worked as a meat packer from 1941 to 1954, and during this time became increasingly involved with the United Packinghouse and Food and Alliance Workers Union. In 1953, Wyatt was "elected vice president of her branch, Local 56, becoming the first black woman to hold senior office in an American labor union". Wyatt was the director of the Women's Affairs and Human Rights departments of the Amalgamated Meat Cutters. In the early 1960s, Eleanor Roosevelt recognized her leadership abilities and appointed her to a position on the Labor Legislation Committee of the United States Commission on the Status of Women.

During the 1970s she became a powerful figure in the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union. In 1974, Wyatt was a founder the Coalition of Labor Union Women. When Wyatt became the international vice president of the United Food and Commercial Workers in 1976 she was the first African-American woman to take a high-level leadership position in an international union.