New York City Mayor's Advisory Transit Committee Hearing Transcripts and Records
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Scope and Contents
Inclusive date range: 1937 -1947
Bulk date: 1946
This collection consists of records submitted to and created by the New York City's Mayor's Advisory Committee. The collection is divided into four series, listed below, to help distinguish the creators of the records in this collection. "Series I: Hearing Transcripts" consists of fourteen bound volumes conaining the transcripts of the thirteen public hearings held in March, April, and May 1946 and for the hearing in June 1946 held with the Board of Transportation. "Series II: Union Exhibits and Submissions" consists of memoranda, demands, briefs, supplemental briefs, exhibits, and other submissions made by the sixteen unions representing the employees in the NYC Transit System. In addition to the records of these sixteen organizations which appeared at the hearings, this series also conatins the briefs of an additional seven labor orgnizations which did not participate in the hearings, but did file their papers with the Committee (for a complete list of these organiations, see pp. iii-iv in the final report of the Committee). "Series III: Board of Transportation Exhibits and Submissions" consists of the Board of Transportation [BoT] response to the demands of its employees in a memorandum with exhibits and additional submissions with data that the BoT alleged supported their position in denying the demands of their employees. "Series IV: Mayor's Committee Drafts, Correspondence, and Reports" consists of the records generated by the Committee itself. These papers include multiple drafts of the final report submitted to the Mayor, detailed analysis of monetary matters and labor relations with regard to civil service employees in other municipalities as they relate to the demands of the employees, annotated copies of civil service laws, correspondence between committee members, and a copy of the final published report of the Mayor's Advisory Transit Committee.
Series I: Hearing Transcripts, 1946 (Box 1, Folders 1 -13)
Series II: Union Exhibits and Submissions, 1939-1946 (Box 1, Folders 14-28)
Series III: Board of Transportation Exhibits and Submissions, 1943-1946 (Box 2, Folders 1a-4)
Series IV: Mayor's Committee Drafts, Correspondence, and Reports, 1946-1947 (Box 2, Folders 5-18)
Dates
- 1939-1947
Language of Materials
Collection material in English
Conditions Governing Access
Access to the collections in the Kheel Center is restricted. Please contact a reference archivist for access to these materials.
Conditions Governing Use
This collection must be used in keeping with the Kheel Center Information Sheet and Procedures for Document Use.
Biographical / Historical
The New York City Transit Board was established in 1924 as the operating agency for the New York City mass transit system. In 1932, the Transit Board completed the construction of the Independent Subway [IND] and its employees became part of the Competitive Civil Service System in 1935.
There were two private companies providing subway service in New York at this time: the Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit Company [BRT] and the Interborough Rapid Transit Company [IRT]. Their employees had negotiated system-wide closed shop agreements with the Transport Workers' Union [TWU] in 1937, except for motormen and signal maintainers. They were represented by the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers [BLE] and the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen [BRS], respectively.
In 1940, New York City purchased the BMT and the IRT and as part of the purchase agreed to respect the contracts of the three unions, which were set to expire in 1941. However, the relationship between the City and the unions degenerated and the TWU made two separate strike threats. The mayor of New York, William O'Dwyer, eventually responded to these threats by creating the Mayor's Advisory Transit Committee in 1946. The committee was charged with studying the issues and making recommendations regarding working conditions, wages, and labor relations with the NYC Transit Board. The chairman of the board was Arthur S. Meyer. The other members of the committee were Theodore W. Kheel, Edward P. Mulrooney, Anna M. Hoffman (nee Rosenberg), and Samuel I. Rosenman. Dr. Thomas Knowlton, United States Conciliation Service, and Clara Friedman (nee Handleman), labor arbitrator, served as executive secretary and committee economist, respectively.
The central issues addressed were the desirabiliity and permissibility of collective bargaining, the process for resolving grievances, the legality of public employees striking, and monetary issues concerning both wages and maintenance of an extensive transit system. Hearings were held in the spring and summer of 1946.
The final report of the committee was delivered to Mayor O'Dwyer on September 9, 1946.
Extent
2 cubic feet
Abstract
This collection contains materials produced by the New York City Mayor's Advisory Transit Committee and submissions to the committee from the various parties involved in the mediation. These records include transcripts of the hearings, exhibits from labor unions, submissions from the New York City Transit Authority, correspondence of committee members, and drafts of committee documents.
Quantity:
2 linear ft.
Forms of Material:
Records (documents) .
General
- Contact Information:
- Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation and Archives Martin P. Catherwood Library 227 Ives Hall Cornell University Ithaca, NY 14853 (607) 255-3183 kheel_center@cornell.edu http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/library/kheel-center
- Compiled by:
- E. Parker, April 12, 2017
- EAD encoding:
- E. Parker, April 12, 2017
Processing Information
From note found in collection: "These are Mr. Meyer's papers of the complete file of the Mayor's Advisory Transit Committee."
- AFSCME.
- Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen.
- Civil Service Forum
- Collective bargaining -- Government employees -- New York
- New York (N.Y.). Transit Police Department -- Employees
- New York City Board of Transportation
- Strikes and lockouts -- Civil service -- New York
- Transport Workers Union of America.
- Transport workers -- New York (State) -- New York
- Wages -- Local transit -- New York (State) -- New York
- Title
- New York City Mayor's Advisory Transit Committee Hearing Transcripts and Records
- Status
- Completed
- Author
- Compiled by E. Parker
- Date
- April 12, 2017
- Language of description
- Undetermined
- Script of description
- Code for undetermined script
- Sponsor
- This collection was processed with the help of generous funding from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC).
Revision Statements
- 02/23/2024: This resource was modified by the ArchivesSpace Preprocessor developed by the Harvard Library (https://github.com/harvard-library/archivesspace-preprocessor)
Repository Details
Part of the Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation & Archives Repository
227 Ives Hall
Ithaca NY 14853