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.
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.