Reel 41

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 Due to Congressional pressure, the Department of Labor became more sensitive to NAWU demands to eliminate the abuses of the Labor Import Program. Mitchell met with officials of the Bureau of Employment Security at the beginning of Aril and during a somewhat stormy session of Labor's Advisory Committee on Farm Labor at the end of May; the papers include Mitchell's report to Galarza on the first meeting (April 10), a letter from BES Deputy Director E.L. Keenan on the proposals drawn up at the...

Scope and Contents Mitchell spent the first part of the summer in California inspecting farm labor conditions; for details on what he found, see his highly pessimistic letters to Fay Bennett and Gardner Jackson (July 25, 30). Before he left for the West, Mitchell delivered a lengthy statement to the House Agriculture Committee opposing plans to make the Mexican Farm Labor Importation Program permanent (June 11). In the course of his testimony, Mitchell charged that California governor Goodwin J. Knight, then...

Scope and Contents On Mitchell's trip to California, see his lengthy report to the NAWU Executive Board (Sept. 18) and his exchange with BES Director Robert C. Goodwin (Aug. 1, 8). Galarza, meanwhile, had become involved in the intense political campaign underway in California; the papers include a press release charging Governor Knight with duplicity in his policies toward agricultural workers (Aug. 20) and various items relating to the campaign to defeat Proposition 18, described as a Right-to-Work Law in...

Scope and Contents The activities of the NAWU came to a virtual halt during these two months as the union waited to see what kind of support the AFL-CIO might grant. On the financial crisis, see especially the exchanges between Mitchell and NSF Executive Secretary Fay Bennett (Nov 12, 14), Walter Pl. Reuther (Nov 17, Dec 2), and A. Philip Randolph (Dec 2,5). There is a six-page letter from Galarza on his winter plans in California (Nov. 13), and a letter of equal length from Mitchell to broadcaster Edward P....

Scope and Contents

A letter from the Bureau of Employment Security providing statistical information on the farm labor recruitment program; two memoranda by Mitchell on setting up the National Advisory Committee on Farm Labor; "A Proposal For Organization of Agricultural and Allied Workers in Louisiana"; report by Galarza on foreign nationals in California; "Why Farmers Need a Union" by H. L. Mitchell

Scope and Contents

Folder 1540-B -- Correspondence with the Union Life Insurance Co. and with NAWU accountant A. Benjamin Hall. Folder 1540-C -- Correspondence with the AFL-CIO Industrial Union Department on per capita tax payments, and correspondence with local secretaries on dues payments. Folders 1540-D and -E -- Not Filmed.