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Register of the California CIO Council Union Research And Information Services Records, 1935-1956
MSS 013  
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Collection Details
 
Table of contents What's This?
  • Descriptive Summary
  • Administrative Information
  • History
  • Scope and Content
  • Related Collections

  • Descriptive Summary

    Title: California CIO Council Union Research And Information Services Records,
    Date (bulk): 1935-1956
    Collection number: MSS 013
    Creator: California CIO Council Union Research And Information Services
    Extent: 9 boxes
    Repository: Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research.
    Los Angeles, California
    Language: English.

    Administrative Information

    Access

    The collection is available for research only at the Library's facility in Los Angeles.  The Library is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday. Researchers are encouraged to call or email the Library indicating the nature of their research query prior to making a visit.

    Publication Rights

    Copyright has not been assigned to the Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research. Researchers may make single copies of any portion of the collection, but publication from the collection will be allowed only with the express written permission of the Library's director. It is not necessary to obtain written permission to quote from a collection. When the Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research gives permission for publication, it is as the owner of the physical item and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained.

    Preferred Citation

    [Identification of item], California CIO Council Union Research And Information Services Records, Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research, Los Angeles.

    History

    The California CIO Council's Union Research and Information Services (URIS) was the research arm of the state CIO Council from the mid-1940's to the early 1950's. Housed in the Los Angeles CIO building at Avalon and Slauson, it was directed by Sanford Goldner. Like the research departments of most unions, the CIO Research and Information Services gathered and analyzed information about political, economic, and governmental issues pertinent to industrial workers. Among these issues were collective bargaining regulations, job classifications, wage determinations, unemployment service, and the Taft-Hartley Law of 1947.

    Scope and Content

    The records of URIS preserved at SCL cover the approximate period 1945-1955. They are arranged in a single alphabetical file. They are also identified geographically, primarily to highlight which files pertain to Los Angeles.
    In addition to research files on economic issues, there are also files on individual unions, like the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union, Local 26 (a warehouse local), on strikes in Los Angeles, and on social issues like segregation in housing and education. These files reflect the CIO's historic commitment to building a broad-based union movement, representing workers of all races and ethnic groups. Files in the collection on the Taft-Hartley Law and the Un-American Activities Committee are pertinent to the assault on the Left in the Union movement in the immediate post-war years. The loyalty oath requirement of the Taft-Hartley law, which required union officers to sign anti-Communist affidavits, hastened the demise of a militant CIO.
    James L. Daugherty, a former president of the California CIO Council, rescued the URIS files, as well as much other labor material in the Los Angeles CIO building, when the CIO offices there were closed in the 1950's. He brought these materials to Emil Freed, SCL founder, to form the basis of the Library's labor archives.
    See related SCL Collection: James L. Daugherty Papers.

    Related Collections

    Title: James L. Daugherty Papers, 1937-1980.
    Title: Shevy Wallace Healey Papers (CIO Los Angeles Organizing), 1938-1962.
    Title: Standard Coil Organizing Campaign Collection (UE vs. IUE-CIO), 1949-1954, n.d..
    Title: Julius Mel Reich Labor Archives Collection.