Biographical information

The collection consists of reports and documents created for and during Lazare Teper's tenure as Director of the ILGWU Research Department. General items included are various notes from seminars and meetings he attended, lists of brainstorming topics or ideas, copies of pages from address and note books and correspondence. There is correspondence and information for the 1969 conference "Labor Issues and the Planning Process" which Teper was involved. Teper was part of a mission to Mexico to study that country's income distribution and economic policies. During the research, individuals were interviewed and documents and statistics studied. His report investigated the shifts in income distribution and its relationship to changes in minimum wage and protective labor legislation in Mexico. The records contain all of his work and research that went into the report. Another interesting study is a comprehensive investigation of the strike of the Yellow Cab Company in Baltimore that took place November 6-13, 1928.



The majority of the material centers on articles written and reports compiled by Teper and are arranged by year. Articles and reports include "Forty-Cent Minimum Wage for the Women's Clothing Industry," "Aspects of Industrial Homework in Apparel Trades," "Observations on the Cost of Living Index of the Bureau of Labor Statistics," "Wage-Price Issues 1948," "The Function of Management in Achieving Sound Labor Relations," and "Basic Trends in the Women's Garment Industry." Reports focus on topics such as the minimum wage, amendments to the Fair Labor Standards Act, statistics and price indexes, unemployment, economic conditions of the garment industry and the impact of imports. Teper also often presented speeches and remarks at meetings and conferences which are also contained in the records. He delivered numerous statements on behalf of the ILGWU to Senate and House Committees and Sub-Committees including Economic, Labor and Education, Appropriations, Ways and Means, and Trade and Tariff Commissions, which are organized according to year.



The records also provide biographical information as well as remembrances and correspondence following his death. While the collection contains Teper's personal records, also pertinent are the related collections at the Kheel Center of the ILGWU Research Department: Research Department Records 1921-1983 (5780/105), Research Department Records 1884-1948 (5780/045), Research Department Records 1907-1980 (5780/123), Research Department Records 1907-1948 (5780/056), Research Department Records 1890-1971 (5780/168), Research Department Records 1945-1995 (5780/209), Research Department Reports 1938-1985 (5780/078), Research Department U.S. National Industry Recovery Administration (NIRA) Hearing Files 1933-1937 (5780/163), and the Research Department Wages and Hours Files 1938-1942, 1950-1975 (5780/148).