Unemployed Councils

The Unemployed Councils of the USA (UC) was a mass organization of the Communist Party, USA established in 1930 in an effort to organize and mobilize unemployed workers to advance party policy goals in preparation for an anticipated final conflict to overthrow capitalism.

The UC was the organizational successor of the Unemployment Council of New York, a broad-based organization established by various trade unions in New York City in the spring of 1921, during the economic downturn which followed the termination of the First World War. The organization was dissolved through merger into the Workers Alliance of America, a parallel organization affiliated with the Socialist Party of America, in April 1936.

In March 1921 a conference was held in New York City to address the unemployment question. This effort was widely supported by the local agencies of organized labor, with some 35 independent or associated locals of the American Federation of Labor and the Industrial Workers of the World sending delegates.

This Unemployment Conference of Greater New York elected Israel Amter, a member of the underground United Communist Party of America (UCP), as the secretary of a new organization, the Unemployment Council of New York.

Shortly after the conference, Amter was embroiled in a raid on UCP headquarters in New York City, in which he was arrested and charged with having committed the crime of criminal anarchy under New York state law. Following his release on bail, Amter threw himself into unemployment work, launching a small newspaper called Jobless and agitating on street corners to crowds of passersby.

...
Wikipedia