Remembering Vince Copeland, co-founder of Workers World Party
Vincent Copeland, a founder of Workers World Party and a trade union leader who opposed the Korean War in a period of unbridled red-baiting, died at home June 7 after a long illness. He was 77 years old and lived in Hoboken, N.J.
Beginning in the mid-1940s, Copeland was a grievance committee
member and editor of the union newspaper of Local 2601, United
Steel Workers of America, representing the huge Bethlehem Steel
plant in Lackawanna, N.Y., an industrial suburb of Buffalo. He was
fired in October 1950 for having led a number of wildcat strikes in
the blast furnace department.His firing evoked a tumultuous struggle in which first the blast
furnace workers, and eventually all 16,000 steelworkers at the
plant, walked out demanding his reinstatement. A union meeting of
thousands during the walkout created the worst traffic jam in
Lackawanna’s history.



