Conditions Governing Use
Conditions Governing Access
Related Materials
Preferred Citation
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Processing Information
Arrangement
Organizational History
Biography of Tonie Jones
Scope and Contents
Title: Tonie Jones Papers
Date (inclusive): 1972-1983
Creator:
Jones, Tonie
Extent:
18.75 Cubic Feet
(14 boxes)
Collection number: larc.ms.0324
Accession number: 1989/084
Repository:
Labor Archives and Research Center
J. Paul Leonard Library, Room 460
San Francisco State University
1630 Holloway Ave
San Francisco, CA 94132-1722
(415) 405-5571
larc@sfsu.edu
Abstract: This collection documents Tonie Jones' activities as a union steward and her work in organizing women office workers. The
resource material files contain a number of articles and pamphlets about union organizing written by and about women. The
collection also contains 11 cartons of unprocessed additions collected by Jones while she served as Local 3 steward. Materials
include safety and health committee information, union election documents, union meeting minutes, Labor Council minutes, union
newsletters and publications, union organizing material, trustee reports, Finance Committee documents, and Women's Committee
documents.
Physical Location: Collection stored offsite: advance notice required for use.
Languages: Languages represented in the collection: English.
Conditions Governing Use
Copyright has not been assigned to the Labor Archives and 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 and 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.
Conditions Governing Access
Collection is open for research.
Related Materials
Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU) Local 3 records, 1950-2008.
Preferred Citation
[Identification of item], Tonie Jones Papers, larc.ms.0324, Labor Archives and Research Center, San Francisco State University.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Donated by Tonie Jones in 1989, accession number 1989/048.
Processing Information
Processed by Labor Archives and Research Staff. Boxes 4-11 contain unprocessed material but are available for research.
Arrangement
The records are arranged in seven series: Series 1: OPEIU Local 3 Files; Series 2: OPEIU Local 29 Files; Series 3: OPEIU International
Files; Series 4: SEIU Local 400; Series 5: W.O.E.; Series 6: Toni Jones Personal Files; Series 7: Unprocessed Materials.
Organizational History
The Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU) began as a "union's union." In 1904 the American Federation
of Labor (AFL) started granting affiliated charters to clerical workers in the offices of trade unions and began referring
to the new unions as "federal labor unions." The organization of clerical workers in trade union offices was quite sucessful.
The workers were eager to organize, and the officials of the unions usually offered no resistance.
Despite setbacks in the 1920s, federal labor union activists continued their organizing efforts and expanded into offices
in service industries and private businesses in the 1930s. In July 1942 men and women representating the federal labor unions
gathered in Chicago and formed the International Council of Office Employes. Three years later the AFL replaced the affiliated
charters with an international charter, created the Office and Professional Employees International Union, and broadened the
focus of the union. It specifically charged the new international union to organize clerical workers in all offices in the
United States and Canada, not just those of trade unions. Organizing office workers in businesses, however, was much more
difficult than organizing employees of trade unions. Michael Troutman and Amy Blumenshine note a number of problems confronting
unions attempting to organize clerical workers:
Although the reality may be different, significant numbers of clerical workers continue to perceive themselves as temporary
members of the clerical workforce. Clericals fear job loss which employers may threaten for pro-union activity. Some clericals
develop strong loyalties to their bosses due to office configuration and psychological needs. Clericals have little contact
with or understanding about unionization and tend not to associate unions with their own needs as white-collar workers. Clerical
attitudes toward unions are often marked by suspicion and misconception due to distortions caused by the media and managerial
communications.
The OPEIU faced all of these problems. Not surprisingly many of the Union's early successes were in industries that had other
unionized employees. For example, in the 1940s and earlier the OPEIU was particularly active in the offices of shipbuilders,
most notably in Oakland, Portland, Vancouver, Tampa, and New York City.
After initial efforts in unionized industries, the OPEIU looked toward the largely unorganized industries of banking and insurance.
In the 1960s and 1970s the OPEIU leaders organized many banking offices and grew accordingly. The offices of the National
Bank of Washington, Washington, D.C. brought 565 new members to the Union. Not all of the Union's efforts in the banking industry
have been successful. Recently Local 29 in Oakland, responding to a request for unionization by employees of the Barclays
Bankcard Center in Concord California, attempted to organize the Center but lost a NLRB election on 10 July 1986. The OPEIU
has been even more active in the insurance industry than in banking. Some of the OPEIU's largest increases in membership have
been in offices of insurance companies; for example, the offices of Kaiser-Permanente, Oakland, CA, and Cleveland, OH and
Group Health Cooperative of Puget Sound, Seattle, WA each brought more than 1,000 new members to the Union.
In many ways the development of OPEIU Local 3 in San Francisco mirrors the history of the OPEIU international. In 1911 Samuel
Gompers of the American Federation of Labor chartered the Stenographers, Typewriters, Bookkeepers, and Assistants Association
No. 13188, the predecessor of Local 3. The Association had only 100 members, most of whom were men holding positions in the
offices of trade unions or in the offices of the city government of San Francisco. The Association was reorganized in 1937,
granted a new charter, and renamed OPEIU Local 36, but by 1955, when the Union became Local 3, it had only 100 remaining members.
The fortunes of the Union were turned by Phyllis K. Mitchell, who began serving as recording secretary in 1943 and then served
as president for twenty-five years. By 1965 she had increased the Union's membership eleven fold. She secured agreements in
public and private offices in industries from media to shipping to baking.
One of greatest successes of Local 3 in San Francisco was in the insurance industry. In 1972 Local 3 won a NLRB election at
Blue Shield of California. The membership of the Local, which had been 1,100 in 1965, jumped to nearly 3,000. Not only did
the membership increase, but its composition changed too. The workforce at Blue Shield was comprised primarily of women office
workers, especially Filipinas. After winning the election Local 3 broke the Company's freeze on wages and increased them by
one third.
Local 3 continued to represent employees at Blue Shield through the mid-1980s. It survived an open shop vote in 1981, but
in 1987, after Blue Shield reorganized and decentralized its workforce, the remaining 350 employees represented by the Union
voted to decertify it. The decertification of Local 3 at Blue Shield followed decertification of an OPEIU local at Blue Shield
of St. Louis in 1982. Despite these losses, OPEIU still represents nearly one-half of the unionized Blue Shield employees
across the nation in 1987 and is one of the largest unions in the country.
Biography of Tonie Jones
Two years after the election, on 19 February 1974, Tonie Jones began working at Blue Shield. In addition to her job at Blue
Shield, she held a number of positions in the union, most notably union steward. She actively fought for the rights of employees,
at times contesting the actions of the Union as well as those of the Company; for example, she sought to have the election
of Local 3 officers overturned in 1977. She appealed to the office of the International Union and the U.S. Department of Labor.
Her work as a steward brought written warnings, denial of promotions, and other forms of pressure from the Company, but she
continued her activities. Jones served on negotiating, staff, and trustee committees, organized get-out-the-vote drives, and
constructed internal networks at Blue Shield, among other duties. She was an advocate for women's rights and, at an Executive
Board Meeting of Local 3 in 1977, she and other union members introduced resolutions to support the Equal Rights Amendment
and the establishment of women's committees to address issues and rights of working women. The Local passed the resolutions.
Scope and Contents
The leaders of Local 3 of the Office and Professional Employees International Union had been organizing office workers in
San Francisco for more than seventy years when they won the NLRB election at Blue Shield of California in 1972. In the seventy
years from 1911 to 1972, the size of the office workforce in San Francisco, the gender of office workers, and the kind of
work and the machines used have changed tremendously. Not only did the number of office workers increase dramatically as San
Francisco and the United States moved to a service economy, but the majority of officer workers today, unlike at the turn
of the century, are women. In San Francisco a significant number of office workers are women of color. Many office workers
now spend eight hours a day in front of a video display terminal (VDT) in large, large offices.
The changes in the office workforce and the uncertainties of the U.S. economy in the 1970s and 1980s brought to the fore in
union negotiations issues such as flextime, comparable worth, production standards, automation training, health and safety
concerns for VDT operators, cost-of-living clauses, relocation of jobs to suburbs, and pension protection. At the same time
more traditional union issues such as wage increases, seniority, grievance procedures, and the right to conduct union business
at the workplace did not disappear. This collection will help researchers understand the role of Local 3 in dealing with these
issues most notably at Blue Shield but also at Airport Parking Management. Of particular interest are the files of negotiations
between Local 3 and Blue Shield. At times researchers will find a detailed paper trail of the discussions with Blue Shield
in the files. For example, the contract negotiations of 1977 contain the perspectives of Local 3 and the Company about advantages
and disadvantages of flextime. In 1978 the Union contacted arbitrators to achieve a resolution on the cost-of-living clause
in the contract. The 1980 strike involved a series of issues, including wage increases, VDT health and safety concerns, production
standards, seniority, salary protection for "bumped" employees, and a relocation settlement for employees whose jobs were
moved to other cities. The committee files of Local 3 also contain detailed information about concerns of the Union, but generally
in the form of notes taken by Tonie Jones rather than formal minutes.
The collection also demonstrates the interest of Tonie Jones in organizing women office workers. The resource material files
contain a number of articles and pamphlets about union organizing written by and about women. Groups such as Working Women
and W.O.E. are represented. The diversity of these pieces and other works are of interest. They were written for several audiences,
including union activists, employees, managers, and lawyers.
The collection also contains 11 cartons of unprocessed additions collected by Jones while she served as Local 3 steward. Materials
include safety and health committee information, union election documents, union meeting minutes, Labor Council minutes, union
newsletters and publications, union organizing material, trustee reports, Finance Committee documents, and Women's Committee
documents.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Clerks.
Women -- Employment.
Video display terminals -- Health aspects.
Wages -- Cost-of-living adjustments
Service Employees International Union.
Office and Professional Employees International Union. Local 3 (San Francisco, Calif.)