Greater Buffalo Industrial Union Council Records
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Scope and Contents
Include general administrative records, materials relating to labor legislation, relations with member organizations, relations with New York State Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) and the national CIO, relations with international labor organizations and with the public.
General administrative records (1938-1958) include correspondence, publications, resolutions, reports, minutes and ballots concerning the sentiment of the GBIUC on various state and federal legislative proposals, political endorsements, veterans' affairs, American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations relations, local strikes, and various other local union matters. Specific issues covered in these records include employment stabilization after World War II; unemployment insurance and workmen's compensation; industrial safety and hygiene; jurisdictional disputes and raiding between the Niagara, N.Y. locals of the United Automobile Workers and the United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers; strikes at Remington Rand, Bell Aircraft, and the National Carbon Company; and the merger of American Federation of Labor (A.F. of L.) and Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) unions in Buffalo.
A resolutions file (1939-1958) includes matters coming before the GBIUC for its endorsement or opposition. These include proposed new or amended federal, state, or county legislation and public issues of interest to organized labor. Among the issues acted upon were the Hatch-Ball-Burton Bill, S.1171; a national health bill; the Taft-Hartley Act, the St. Lawrence power project; time-and-a-half provisions for county workers; and the imposition of state sales tax in New York. The GBIUC also expressed its opinion on the issues of runaway shops, social security, unemployment, a guaranteed annual wage, slum clearance and low rent housing, World War II defense issues, and the anti-communist campaign of the 1950's, among others.
The collection contains files relating to the Council's relations with its member organizations, including correspondence, reports, resolutions, surveys, legislative materials, and publications (1939-1959). These records concern financial matters, and affiliated local activities, including strikes, contract negotiations, and arbitration. Also included is a survey of the thirty-five affiliated member organizations on the impact of post World War II reconversion and employment.
GBIUC relations with the New York State CIO Council are documented in resolutions, reports and correspondence between the two organizations. Discussed are right-to-work laws, the New York State Disability Benefits Law, a rent control bill, unemployment insurance, and workmen's compensation, among other issues.
The Council's varied political activities are recorded throughout the collection but particularly in its legislative action files (1940-1959). These include correspondence, resolutions, legislative materials, statements, and surveys. Municipal correspondents include Bernard J. Dowd (mayor of Buffalo), Francis E. Franczak (Buffalo Department of Health), and Leo J. Hagerty (district attorney, Erie County) as well as officials of the Buffalo Common Council, the Buffalo Policemen's Organization, the Buffalo Port Authority, the City of Lackawanna, the Erie County Board of Supervisors and County Department of Social Welfare. New York State correspondents include Stanley J. Bauer (senator), Frederick T. Devlin (assistant attorney general), Charles W. Halloran (acting industrial commissioner, Department of Labor), Averell Harriman (governor), and Walter J. Mahoney (senator), as well as other representatives of the State Assembly, Department of Labor, and Public Services Commission. National legislative correspondents include Homer E. Capchant (senator), Chester C. Gorski (congressman), Irving M. Ives (senator), Jacob K. Javits (senator), James M. Mead (senator), John R. Pillion (congressman), Edmund P. Radwan (congressman), and Anthony F. Tauriello (congressman).
Subjects discussed in this correspondence include workmen's compensation, the Condon-Wadlin Bill, apprenticeship standards, New York State health and safety legislation, unemployment insurance, anti-discrimination and anti-labor legislation, civil rights, conservation, housing, wage legislation and price control, taxes, social security, the Missouri Valley Authority and the St. Lawrence Seaway project.
Also included in these records are correspondence and other documents relating to the GBIUC's activities with the Congress of Industrial Organizations, labor groups around the world and various Buffalo, N.Y. and regional social organizations (ca. 1940's-1950's).
Dates
- 1939-1964
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
Local industrial union councils operated on a city, county, or district basis and were composed of the CIO local unions within these areas. The industrial union councils were under the control of the CIO, but the CIO did not force its nationals and internationals to make their local unions join the local councils. The Local councils, like the state councils, were coordinating agencies designed to serve the local unions within their area.
"The objects of the Council shall be to secure united action of all locals of national and international unions and organizing committees and local industrial unions and industrial union councils affiliated to the CIO within its jurisdiction and through united action to protect, maintain and advance the interests of all working people in its territory, to extend unionism on the basis of industrial organization, to secure and enforce legislation in the interests of the working people, to promote recognition and acceptance of collective bargaining in industry, and to increase public understanding of the labor movement."
-CIO Model Constitution
The Greater Buffalo Industrial Union Council was organized in 193T. The council participated in organizing work and engaged in politics: municipal, state and national. It tried to cultivate a favorable public opinion toward CIO unions. The council sometimes engaged in various types of educational work, such as forming study classes and encouraged the formation of education committees in local unions.
Extent
7 cubic feet
Abstract
This collection contains the office files of the Greater Buffalo Industrial Union Council from its organization in 1937 to their merger with the Buffalo Federation of Labor in 1958. Include general administrative records, materials relating to labor legislation, relations with member organizations, relations with New York State Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) and the national CIO, relations with international labor organizations and with the public.
Quantity:
7 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:
- Kheel Staff, April 29, 2003
- EAD encoding:
- Randall Miles, February 22, 2017
- Anti-communist movements -- United States
- Civil rights -- New York (State)
- Cost and standard of living -- United States
- Employment stabilization -- United States
- Foreign workers -- United States
- Guaranteed annual wage -- United States
- Health Insurance -- Law and legislation -- United States
- Hours of labor -- United States
- Housing -- New York (State) -- Law and legislation
- Industrial hygiene -- United States
- Industrial safety -- United States
- Insurance, Disability -- New York (State)
- Ives, Irving McNeil, 1896-1962.
- Labor laws and legislation -- United States
- Labor laws and legislation--New York (State)
- Labor unions -- Mergers -- New York (State) -- Buffalo
- Labor unions -- New York (State) -- Buffalo -- Political activity
- Labor unions -- New York (State) -- Local unions
- Labor unions -- New York (State) -- Niagara Falls -- Jurisdictional disputes
- Labor unions -- New York (State) -- Political activity
- Labor unions -- United States -- Political activity
- Mead, James M.
- New York (State). Department of Labor
- New York (State). Legislature. Assembly.
- Open and closed shop -- Law and legislation -- New York (State)
- Public works -- United States
- Race discrimination -- Law and legislation -- United States
- Runaway shops -- United States
- Sales tax -- New York (State)
- Social security--United States.
- Strikes and lockouts -- Aircraft industry -- United States
- Strikes and lockouts -- Coal mining industry -- United States
- Strikes and lockouts -- Electronic industries -- United States
- Strikes and lockouts--New York (State)
- Tax collection -- New York (State)
- Unemployment insurance -- New York (State)
- Veterans -- Employment -- United States
- Wages -- County employees -- United States
- Wages -- Minimum wage -- United States
- Workers' compensation -- New York (State)
- Title
- Greater Buffalo Industrial Union Council Records
- Status
- Completed
- Author
- Compiled by Kheel Staff
- Date
- February 22, 2017
- Language of description
- Undetermined
- Script of description
- Code for undetermined script
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