William Standard Papers

Inclusive date range: 1934-1950

Bulk dates: 1939- 1948



This collection consists of the files of NMU's General Counsel William Standard. The records in this collection document the activities of the NMU in its early years. This includes records on legislation affecting the NMU and its members; hearings in front of the National War Labor Board, the National Labor Relations Board, and the War Shipping Administration; negotiations and arbitrations conducted by the NMU on behalf of its members with various corporations and in front of a Presidential Emergency Board; legal files including case notes, filings, and briefs filed in U.S. District and Supreme Courts on a variety of issues including defending NMU members from accusations of seditious activities and in court-martial proceedings, as well as defending the NMU from libelous news stories printed by newspapers owned by the Hearst publishing empire; files on strikes, including the National Maritime Strike of 1946; and general files on the NMU itself and its organizational structure.



Legislative files include drafts of bills, memoranda, letters and reports regarding the National Maritime Union's lobbying activities and its position on federal legislation of interest to its members. The bulk of these records concerns maritime legislation enacted during or immediately after World War II and includes documentation on proposed amendments to War Shipping Administration regulations; on the Merchant Seamen's War Service Act; on suspension of provisions of the Public Vessels Act of 1925; on seamen's rehabilitation legislation; on proposed amendments to the Merchant Marine Act; on amendments to the National Service Life Insurance Act; and on amendments to the Railway Labor Act. This legislation and other bills documented in these files sought to expedite the activities of merchant seamen during the war, to minimize work stoppages, to compensate families of deceased seamen, to provide vocational rehabilitation for those disabled as a result of war-related injuries, to provide for the naturalization of foreign seamen who served on American owned vessels, and to protect the merchant marine from wartime sabotage. The union was also interested in such legislation as the Taft-Hartley amendments to the National Labor Relations Act and anti-organized labor legislation that began appearing in some states after the war.



National War Labor Board case files include statements, letters, decisions, and proposals for cases brought before the Board. The issues brought before the Board include working conditions, wages, hours of work, dispute settlement, jurisdiction, union security, union activity, and collective negotiations.



The National Labor Relations Board case files on NMU representation elections include correspondence, petitions for certification, authorization cards and supporting documentation on certification elections brought before the Board.



The War Shipping Administration case files consist of agreements, letters and petitions regarding cases of the NMU before the War Shipping Administration on the issues of wages and the allocation of personnel on the steamships Copley and Wheeler.



Arbitration case files include awards, decisions, memoranda, and statements pertaining to cases involving various arbitrators. The issues include overtime pay, impasses in collective negotiations, hiring, seniority, discrimination, grievance procedure, and holidays.



Files on collective negotiations include materials pertaining to bargaining conducted between the NMU and various railroads and shipping companies. The documents consist of copies of collective agreements, letters, and statements of proposals of the parties. These files also include materials pertaining to the mediation proceedings held by the National Mediation Board to resolve an impasse in collective negotiations between the NMU and the Reading Railroad tugboat operators.



Files on legal cases argued on behalf of the NMU before the U.S. District and Supreme Courts and various military courts include correspondence, notes and various legal documents. These files include a libel case between the NMU and various newspapers because of a published report alleging NMU members refused to unload military supplies on Guadalcanal Island. Also found is the case file regarding the court martial of an NMU member, in which Standard seeks to determine what level of jurisdiction the Articles of War have over merchant seamen on non-military vessels. Finally, there is documentation of the settlement of strikes against various Great Lakes transportation companies by the NMU.



Standard maintained general files on NMU activities and issues, largely during the war years. These include data on the national reorganization of the union in 1939; on pension and benefit claims and regulations; on the relationship of the NMU to the Women's Auxiliary of the American Merchant Marine Institute, Inc.; and on sedition trials of NMU members. Of particular interest in these files are documents relating to alleged racial discrimination in employment on the Atlantic Coast Line Company; the position of Joseph E. Curran (president, NMU) regarding a Supreme Court case concerning Communist affidavits in 1948; and documents relating to FBI investigations of the NMU and the CIO.



Also in the collection are two scrapbooks of news clippings and articles regarding various strikes and elections, non-union workers, salaries, collective agreements, court decisions, safety, hazards, accidents, disasters, factional disputes in maritime unions, communism in unions, and copies of NMU news bulletins dating from 1943 to 1947.