William Hutcheson

Who was William Hutcheson?

William Hutcheson was the leader of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America from 1915 until 1952. A conservative craft unionist, he opposed the organization of workers in mass production industries such as steel and automobile manufacturing into industrial unions. Under his administration the Carpenters Union grew by taking an aggressive stance toward other trade unions that claimed work that Carpenters also claimed. He took his union out of the American Federation of Labor's Building Trades Department on several occasions when he was displeased by its ruling on jurisdictional disputes involving the Carpenters.

Hutcheson was one of the most vigorous exponents of craft unionism within the AFL, who not only opposed the organizing of industrial workers, but tried to prevent others from undertaking it. That conflict over the proper role of unions was symbolized by the famous punch — or shove — that John L. Lewis delivered at the AFL’s convention in Atlantic City in 1935 after Hutcheson interrupted a speech by a representative of the committee that was attempting to organize tire factory workers with a point of order.