Jerome Wurf - Election Campaign

Election Campaign

Wurf and others unhappy with Zander's leadership formed COUR, the Committee on Union Responsibility, as an opposition party. The organization gained popularity, and received a number of votes in 1962 even though hundreds of "international" delegates were directly controlled by Zander. Zander also benefited from rules limiting any one Local's representation to 5 delegates (with one delegate per hundred members), rules which substantially decreased the power of larger urban Locals. Wurf himself did not campaign actively in 1962, although he did receive a nomination for president. Even so, the final vote was close (1490 to 1085). Zander, surprised by the result, subsequently lost face at the convention during unsuccessful efforts to increase union taxes on the Locals.

Over the next two years, Zander tried to expel Wurf and other members of COUR from the union. This proved difficult due to their popular support. Zander and his supporters also published negative stories about Wurf in the union's newspaper, denying COUR access to the mailing list for its distribution.

In 1964, Wurf unseated Zander by just 21 votes, despite Zander's active use of his incumbent position to control the election procedurally. According to the Milwaukee Sentinel: "Zander's supporters attempted to prevent Wurf's backers from reading results of the election into the convention records. The struggle from the floor, with Zander guiding the fight from the podium continued into the afternoon session." COUR won ten out of eleven seats on the executive board. After the announcement of his narrow victory, Wurf surrounded himself with bodyguards and sent three people to the union office in Washington to change the locks. He also moved to designate Zander 'president emeritus' and provide him with a full salary and expenses until retirement age

Wurf became the first challenger to defeat a president of a major AFL-CIO international union since Walter Reuther had done so in 1946.