California CIO Council Union Research And Information Services Records, bulk 1935-1956

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Background

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.

Biographical / historical:

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.

Physical description:
9 boxes

Access and use

Location of this collection:
6120 S. Vermont Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90044, US
Contact:
(323) 759-6063
web@socallib.org
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