Reel 40

Scope and Contents From the Collection: Consist of correspondence, reports, ledgers, legal documents, leaflets, printed material, photographs, and newspapers published by the union. These document the activities of the Southern Tenant Farmers' Union from its origins through its transformations into the National Farm Labor Union in 1946 and the National Agriculture Workers Union in 1952, and through its merger with the Amalgamated Meat Cutters Union in 1960. The records also contain selected materials from the Socialist Party...

Scope and Contents The negotiations with the Amalgamated Meat Cutters over the proposed merger may be followed through Mitchell's correspondence with Galarza and with Patrick Gorman throughout the winter. In the middle of February, the AFL-CIO Industrial Union Council granted the NAWU $25,000 for a special program to obtain the enforcement of P.L. 78, which stated that domestic workers should have job preference over foreign nationals in farm work. See the exchange between Mitchell and Walter Reuther on the...

Scope and Contents The jurisdictional dispute between the NAWU and UPWA over sugar workers began to heat up; see especially the exchange between Mitchell and Rev. Louis J. Twomey of Loyola University (April 5, 10), the angry exchange between Mitchell and UPWA Vice-President A.T. "Tony" Stephens (June 5,11,16), and the report of the NAWU Louisiana organizing staff on their meeting with Stephens (June 20). There are also two letters from Mitchell to all sugar workers' locals directly affiliated with AFL- CIO,...

Scope and Contents The dispute with UPWA over Louisiana sugar workers continued through the summer; see especially Mitchell to William Schnitzler, with attached correspondence relating to the dispute (July 10) and the frequent exchanges of letters between Mitchell and Galarza during September on UPWA and on California organizing plans in general. In his effort to publicize the plight of domestic farm workers under the bracero system, Galarza focused on a group of 100 families at a Yuba City government camp...

Scope and Contents During the last week of October, the leaders of the United Sugar Workers, Local 1422, decided to disaffiliate with the NAWU and return to UPWA. From October 26 on, the papers are primarily concerned with Mitchell's attempt to stem the revolt by placing the local in receivership and by sending organizer George Stith to Louisiana to win the support of the rank-and-file membership. The key documents include Galarza's report on his trip to Louisiana to appraise the situation (Nov 10), Stith's...

Scope and Contents The reader may follow the progress of the attempt to re-organize Sugar Workers Local 1422 through the frequent reports of George Stith (3 to 14). There is a series of letters from Galarza to California Governor Goodwin J. Knight on specific violations of the US-Mexican International Agreement in the San Joaquin Valley (3 to 7); see also the reply from H.W. Stewart, Director of the California State Department of Employment (16). At the AFL-CIO Annual Convention in Atlantic City, Frank P....

Scope and Contents

Several memoranda by Mitchell on NAWU organizing plans; "Facts and figures", a report on the size and structure of NAWU; NSF report on "The Condition of Farm Workers in 1957"

Scope and Contents Plans developed rapidly for the survey proposed to Walter Reuther in December; see the memoranda by Mitchell and by the ad hoc committee to Reuther (Jan 6, 18), and Mitchell to Galarza on his conversation with Victor Reuther about the study (Feb 4). With the aid of Congressman James Roosevelt, the union attempted to obtain a Congressional investigation of alleged racketeering in the Mexican labor import program; for information on this campaign, see especially Galarza to Mitchell (Jan. 19),...

Scope and Contents The papers include a number of letters from Galarza on his fight to obtain enforcement of P.L. 78 by USES and the California State Farm Placement Service; see also the letters to Congressman John F. Shelley from USES Director Robert C. Goodwin and California Regional Director Glenn Brockway on the work of the Regional Foreign Labor Operations Advisory Committee in California (7, 14). Mitchell met with AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer William F. Schnitzler on March 25 to attempt to work out a...