UE District 8, as of 1946
District 8 District 8 originated in St. Louis but eventually comprised locals in Missouri , Iowa , Indiana,, Illinois, Arkansas, and Kansas. During World War II, the district expanded to more than fifty thousand workers. The activists who shaped trade union policy in District 8 sought to develop a way to effectively confront corporate power and to make the workers' movement a force for social transformation on the local, regional and national level.
District 8's territory covered much of the electrical industry's "independents," companies intransigiently antiunion, and which fought labor rights on the geographical periphery of the industry. These companies labor policies were shaped by the National Metal Trades Association, which adhered to fighting unionization with a through a collective policy that used spies, propaganda and labeling unions as subversive.