Descriptive Summary
Administrative Information
Introduction
History
Scope and Content Notes
Material Cataloged Separately
Descriptive Summary
Title: Central Labor Council of Alameda County, AFL-CIO,
Date (inclusive): 1935-1972 (predominantly 1952-1972)
Accession number: 1990/022, 1993/026
Creator:
Central Labor Council of Alameda County
Extent: 67 cubic feet
Repository:
San Francisco State University. Labor Archives & Research Center
San Francisco, California 94132
Shelf location: For current information on the location of these
materials, please consult the Center's online catalog.
Language:
English.
Administrative Information
Access
Collection is open for research.
Publication Rights
Copyright has not been assigned to the Labor Archives & Research Center. All requests
for permission to publish or quote from materials must be submitted in writing to the
Director of the Archives. Permission for publication is given on behalf of the Labor
Archives & Research Center as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to
include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained by the
reader.
Preferred Citation
[Identification of item], Central Labor Council of Alameda County, AFL-CIO, 1990/022,
1993/026, Labor Archives & Research Center, San Francisco State University.
Introduction
In 1984, the Council had given their archives to the Oakland Public Library's Oakland
History Room. The records of the Central Labor Council of Alameda County were donated to
the Labor Archives and Research Center in 1990 by Bill Sturm, Oakland History Room. Lynn
A. Bonfield and Karen R. Lewis transferred the collection to LARC. The collection was
processed by Thomas J. Carey in the summer of 1992.
History
The AFL Central Labor Council of Alameda County was formed at a meeting of delegates from
31 local unions on October 26, 1903. C. W. Petry of the Shoemakers was elected first
president. Ira Cross has written that this body existed as far back as 1891. (An Alameda
County Federated Trades Council, originally comprised of six member unions, had been
organized in October 1900 and headquartered in Oakland.) The State Bureau of Labor
Statistics reported that by mid-year 1900, 24 unions were functioning in Alameda County,
though not all were AFL affiliates. The county's unions joined others in the state in
1901 to create the California State Federation of Labor. Meeting minutes from October
1904 document the Council's first approval of picketing in a local labor dispute. In June
1910, the central labor councils of Alameda and San Francisco approved assessments of 25
cents per member per week, to raise funds for Los Angeles metal trades workers striking
for an eight-hour work day. A weekly labor newspaper for Alameda County, the
Tri-City Labor Review began publishing in 1910. In a special election in
1912, the paper's management joined the Council and the Oakland Socialist Party in an
unsuccessful attempt to recall Oakland mayor Frank Mott, who these groups labelled a
reactionary. Unlike their San Francisco counterpart, the
Labor Clarion,
the
Review would later attack the prosecution of Mooney and Billings
(1918); in fact, the Council and individual unions made contributions to Mooney's defense
fund. Also, the council polled affiliates on the question of a general strike in protest
of Mooney's scheduled execution, and found that a majority favored the planned strike.
However, the San Francisco Labor Council rejected the general strike in a close vote, and
the commutation of Mooney's sentence diffused tensions somewhat. The first major work
stoppage the Alameda Labor Council would be involved in occurred early in October 1919,
when 1100 employees of the San Francisco-Oakland Terminal Railways struck for ten days.
William Spooner, president of the Council in 1908, was named secretary in 1913.
Membership had risen to between twelve and fifteen thousand workers from 38 locals by
this time. American entry into World War I, with the increase in shipbuilding and other
production, generated an attendant increase in unionization in the East Bay.
The year 1934 will forever be known as the year of the Big Strike, but it was also the
year auto machinist Robert S. Ash began a 33 year relationship with Alameda County and
California state labor. Ash, born in Texas in 1907, settled in California in 1923. Six
days before the 1934 general strike, he joined the Auto Machinists Union, Oakland Local
1546. In 1937, he organized miscellaneous garage help into a Teamsters Union, Garage
Employees #78, predominantly black workers. That year, a new player came onto the labor
stage -the CIO Industrial Union Council of Alameda County. The Central Labor Council was
then restructured to represent only unions loyal to the American Federation of Labor, and
the CIO was organized with unions that had been previously affiliated with the Central
Labor Council. The AFL and CIO councils cooperated in their respective support of the
government and the "war effort" during the years 1941-1945. With victory in Japan
achieved, Oakland and San Francisco machinists promptly struck the shipyards. Other
trades joined in, and this conflict wore on for five months. By the end of the war, Ash
had moved from the shop to the Labor Temple (built in 1934 at 21st and Webster Sts.,
Oakland.) Secretary for Garage Employees #78, he ran for the office of
secretary-treasurer of the Council in 1942 but lost to Fred Silverthorne, the incumbent
of five years and Spooner's successor. The following year Ash defeated Silverthorne,
initiating his 24 year leadership of the Council. The defeat of Proposition 12 in 1944
would turn out to be a trial-run for the bigger campaign Ash and the Council would wage
in 1958. A second general strike in December 1946 lasted only 53 hours, but made its
impact felt in Alameda County and Oakland in particular. Growing out of a Retail Clerks
dispute with two department stores, eventually all AFL locals participated in the strike.
Local police, as requested by the Merchant's Association, had escorted Los Angeles-based
strike breaking truckers to the Oakland stores. The Teamsters, under the direction of
Dave Beck, opposed the Clerks and sided with management and the Merchant's Association.
However, the success of the walkout, leaving Oakland basically "shut down", prompted city
officials to dismiss the scab trucking outfit, and promise never again to use police to
break a strike. The political influence of the Council brought substantial rewards to
East Bay labor in 1947, when four labor-supported candidates gained seats on the Oakland
City Council -this, a result of vigorous campaigning by the Council, as well as voter
disenchantment with Oakland's handling of the recent general strike. Ash was also heavily
involved in the Northern California Committee to elect Truman president in 1948. The
Council's headquarters moved to 2315 Valdez St. in 1949 and remained there until 1974.
The CIO Industrial Union Council's charter was revoked in August 1950, in national CIO
president Philip Murray's drive to disable a perceived left-wing influence in his unions.
A Greater Alameda County CIO Industrial Union Council was formed by December of that
year. In 1952, the Alameda County CIO had 21 member unions and about 15,000 workers; the
AFL Central Labor Council claimed 107 locals and about 100,000 unionists. A merger of the
two councils into a combined local central body was chartered February 16, 1957 and this
organization exists today as the Central Labor Council of Alameda County, AFL-CIO. The
East Bay Labor Health and Welfare Council was formed in 1956, and included Alameda County
labor among its members. The purpose of this body was to work towards the "improvement
and expansion of the health and welfare services available to union members, their
families and the community." The Council's achievement of sharing in the defeat of
Proposition 18 ("Right To Work") in November 1958, combined with Democratic and pro-labor
victories, marks the zenith of its influence in local and state political issues to date.
Civil rights and job training were two areas the Council worked in during the 1960s,
besides more typical labor situations. The Council played a major role in the
implementation of the Manpower Development and Training Act (MDTA) in Alameda County, as
well as minority employment and summer work programs for Oakland youth. Respected in
California for his stewardship of the CLCAC, Robert Ash was asked to join the boards of
many civic, community and state agencies (the United Bay Area Crusade and (c. 1961-1974)
California State Personnel Board, to name just two.) In 1967 Ash announced his retirement
as executive secretary-treasurer, and Council delegates accepted his preference for a
successor -Richard K. Groulx.
Scope and Content Notes
The records of the Central Labor Council of Alameda County (CLCAC) primarily reflect the
activity of the Council, in all of its roles, during the tenure of its
secretary-treasurers, Robert S. Ash (1943-1967), and for a shorter period, Richard K.
Groulx (1967-1986). The Council, at least from 1943, if not earlier, involved itself not
only in the business of the labor movement, but in activities and programs in the East
Bay that aimed to better the lives of working people in general. These records were
physically moved twice after being held at the Council's offices for over 30 years. The
files (52 cartons) came to the Labor Archives in less than orderly arrangement; often
folders lacked labelling, and unidentified, loose materials were interfiled. Still, the
collection could be seen as separate series, and with some reorganizing a logical order,
fairly similar to the apparent original, was achieved. The Council kept files arranged
alphabetically in several broad groupings within a given year, which have now been
designated as series:
Title: Minutes;
Title: Correspondence;
Title: Office Files;
Title: East Bay Labor
Journal/Journal Press.
Unlike many organizations keeping years of a certain
series together, this Council maintained chronological arrangement with each series
represented therein. In the present arrangement,
Title: Minutes
are
indeed a physically separate series (as they were upon arrival).
Title: Minutes
are arranged chronologically, spanning the years
1942-1968, and include records of the Council, its Executive Committee, and for a shorter
period, the Alameda County Voters' League, the precursor to the Alameda County Council On
Political Education (COPE). Original handwritten minutes (for some years) follow the
final typewritten versions. There are large gaps in the Minutes; missing are typewritten
versions for 1946, 1947, 1957, 1958, 1959, 1960, 1961, 1962 and 1963. (COPE Minutes
themselves, where they exist, will be found in the Office Files -Legis/Polit series.)
The series
Title: Correspondence
reflects purely labor-oriented
communications: with and from locals, boards and councils (affiliated or not), state,
national, and international bodies. (Apparently with the transition from Ash to Groulx in
1967, the Correspondence -Locals for 1967 was combined with that of 1968 and will be
found in that year's files. Other changes in filing systems will become apparent as
well.) Correspondence will also be found in the series
Title: Office
Files.
Title: Office Files
is divided into three
sub-series: Internal, Community Relations, and Legislative/Political. Internal refers to
in-house records and correspondence of the Council and its committees, personal papers of
its officers, financial records, and certain files on individuals, locals, strikes, suits
and other activities that merited the special attention or action of the Council. Some
records of the Greater Alameda County CIO Industrial Union Council, which merged with the
AFL Central Labor Council in 1957, also are located in this subseries (1957). Certain
files of the
East Bay Labor Journal and its printing plant, the Journal
Press, have been designated a fourth series; however, respecting the original order of
the collection, those files originally located in the
Title: Office Files
-Internal subseries remain there. Community Relations describes the
Council's communication and involvement with local government and private enterprise in
Alameda County. This subseries reflects labor's involvement in local issues, and this
part of the collection touches on topics such as education, job training, housing, health
care, civil rights, and the anti-war movement. Oakland and East Bay employment programs
are documented here, as well as the Council's cooperation with educational and religious
institutions, civic and charitable organizations. Box 118 contains materials dealing
solely with the Job Placement Program, Neighborhood Youth Corps, and the Work Training
Program. The Legislative/Political subseries reflects the Council's impact on the
political process, from interviewing local school board candidates for potential
endorsement to having its executive-secretary/treasurer sit on the State Personnel Board.
The Council On Political Education (COPE) was formed in May 1958, the successor to the
Alameda County Voters' League. All COPE files, local through national levels, will be
found here. Correspondence with state and federal legislators and departments, and files
concerning government programs and pending legislation are included. This subseries is
fairly voluminous in election years.
Selected records of the
East Bay Labor Journal and the Journal Press, its
printing plant, came to LARC as a group spanning several years rather than integrated in
the more typical chronological fashion, and remain a distinct series:
Title: East
Bay Labor Journal/Journal Press.
A representative collection of issues of the
East Bay Labor Journal for the period 1957-1967 is available in LARC; for
a more complete set, the researcher is advised to contact the Oakland Public Library, or
the U. C. Berkeley Social Sciences Library (microfilm).
Material Cataloged Separately
Photographs removed from the collection are to be found in four folders in LARC
Photograph Collection #4, filed under
Title: Alameda County Central Labor Council:
1) General, 1956-1967 2) Labor Day Picnic, 1967 3) Camp Parks Job
Corps Center Strike: May 1967 4) Event Entertainment, Studio Photographs In addition,
photographs of the 1946 General Strike and Robert Ash are located in the People's World
Photograph Collection, filed under Subjects:
Title: Oakland.
Posters
and broadsides dealing specifically with Alameda County issues have been relocated to the
Poster Collection. Other oversize items can be found in the Oversize Ephemera boxes,
under Alameda. Both posters and ephemera date from the period 1956-1970. There is an
assortment of bumper stickers, pertinent to labor issues and political matters, that has
been relocated to the Bumper Sticker Collection.