Fonds consists of minutes and correspondence of the United Rubber Workers (URW); URW District 6 correspondence, monthly reports, committee, local union and subject files; Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL) correspondence from Mackenzie's tenure as president; personal papers; personal files kept by Mackenzie which document his activities as one of the three appointed trustees with the Board of Maritime Trustees (microfilm). The fonds also contains photographs relating to the URW during the 1940s, including photographs of Joseph Mackenzie, Charles Lanning, William England, International Executive Board and URW staff.
The fonds also contains records relating to Mackenzie's activities as a member of the Board of Maritime Trustees (1963 to 1967), which supervised the operations of the Seafarers International Union (SIU) following the Norris Commission of Inquiry into the disruption of shipping in 1962. These records are located on microfilm reels M-7777 to M-7782.
Mackenzie, Joseph, 1910- : Born in Glasgow, Scotland, Joseph MacKenzie, labour leader, immigrated to Canada with his parents. Mackenzie entered the printing trade in Toronto as an apprentice compositor, but with the beginning of the Depression he could not find work in that trade. MacKenzie began working as a shipper's helper in the Seiberling Rubber Company in Toronto in 1933 and assisted in the organization of a local union which was chartered in 1937 as Local 118 of the United Rubber Workers (URW). He was subsequently dismissed by the company; in 1938, Mackenzie began to work full-time for the URW in Canada.
In 1941, Mackenzie became the first director of District 6. He served as a member of the International Executive Board from 1943 to 1948. In November 1949, Mackenzie was dismissed from the URW staff after the re-election of International President L.S. Buckmaster, due to opposition to earlier Buckmaster policies. At the time of his dismissal in 1949, Mackenzie was also the President of the Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL), an office he held from 1947 to 1951. In 1950, he became national director of the National Union of Unemployed Workers, organized by the Canadian Congress of Labour (CCL).
Mackenzie also became the chair of the CCL General Organizing Committee and in 1953 was appointed the CCL Director of Organization. He continued as Director of Organization with the creation of the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) in 1956. During two decades with the CLC, Mackenzie played an important role in assisting workers in the organization of trade unions. In his later years, Mackenzie directed CLC efforts to organize white-collar workers through the Association of Clerical and Technical Employees (ACTE). Mackenzie retired from the CLC in September 1975.
