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Urban Archives Center
Descriptive Finding Guide for

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA ARBITRATION CASE FILES COLLECTION

1937 – 1948

5.5 linear feet

1 oversize box

Prepared by

Robert G. Marshall, Archivist, Kaneri Lee, Student Assistant, June 1999

Revised by Autumn Hayner, J. Paul Getty Trust, Student Assistant,Cathy Kay, J. Paul Getty Trust, Graduate Student Assistant, September 2004; February 2006

© 2004 Oviatt Library, California State University, Northridge. All rights reserved. For additional information, please contact Urban Archives Center .


CATALOGING INFORMATION


PROVENANCE

The arbitration case files that make up the Southern California Arbitration Case File Collection were transferred to the Urban Archives Center at California State University, Northridge in May 1998 from the Labor Archives and Research Center, San Francisco State University. The original donation of forty (40) cubic feet of case files to the Labor Archives came from the Institute of Industrial Relations at the University of California, Berkeley. The case files were first brought together at Berkeley by Clark Kerr during the 1940s while he was director of the Institute. They were removed from the active research collection at IIR sometime in the mid-1960s.

The Labor Archives at San Francisco State University received the complete case file collection in April of 1990. During the initial sort of the records, those cases pertaining to Southern California, especially labor archives of the Los Angeles area, were separated from the main collection. After negotiations between the Labor Archives and the Urban Archives Center, the Southern material was transferred to become a part of the labor and guild holdings at California State University, Northridge. Additions to the collection may come at a future date. For additional information on the main arbitration case file collection please contact Carol Cuenod or Susan Sherwood at the Labor Archives and Research Center at San Francisco State University.

The collection arrived in five (5) cartons. The transfer from those cartons to acid-free record center boxes reduced the collection to four (4) boxes. Duplicates and non-Southern California case files have been removed from the collection, which reduced the collection even more. After consultation with the Labor Archives in San Francisco, the duplicates were destroyed. Final arrangement of the cases files are by union, then by employer with individual cases placed in chronological order. The descriptive finding guide for this collection was revised in September 2004, in part under a generous gift from the J. Paul Getty Trust. The collection is open for use without restrictions.


HISTORY

The years surrounding the Great Depression were an important period of union growth in the United States. In 1935, congress passed the National Labor Relations Act [NLR Act] which provided protection for employees "in industries affecting interstate commerce to organize, form, join, or assist labor organizations."1 The act gave rise to the creation of an administrative agency known as the National Labor Relations Board [NLRB] whose function it was to ensure that the rights allotted by the act were adhered to. The NLRB would become an important institution during the late 1930's because of its support of arbitration [though the board itself had no authority to act as a mediator in labor dispute cases].

The years immediately following the passage of the NLR Act became a period of adjustment in the corporate realm. Reluctance of industry owners to accept union organization and collective bargaining created tensions between management and employees. Disputes between the two entities occurred frequently and strikes [or the threat of strikes] were often the only way negotiations between the parties would begin. Arbitration became a key method of avoiding strikes during the late 1930’s and early 1940’s and mediation offered a successful solution for many labor disputes.

A labor dispute arbitrator assists parties [in this case, unions, employees and employers] in reaching an agreement on some issue by “learning the issues in dispute, typically with reference to the last proposal made by each side, assessing which issues are of the highest priority, and then encouraging the parties to make moves on their positions.”2 A number of labor disputes took place in Southern California in the late 1930’s through the late 1940’s that required the involvement of an arbitrator to help resolve.

One of the largest arbitration cases documented in the case files involves the labor dispute between the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen [BRT] versus the Pacific Electric Railway Company of Los Angeles in 1937. In the amendments of the Railway Labor Act [first established in 1926, amended in 1934], Congress granted the National Railroad Adjustment Board “the power to decide disputes involving employee grievances and controversies over the interpretation or application of existing agreements.”3 Grievances that came before the board for arbitration in the 1930’s and 1940’s included such issues as the rate of pay for the workers, number of hours that could be worked, and the working conditions experienced by the motor coach operators [trainmen] and bus operators.

In December 1941, following the United States entry into World War II, “the Washington War-Labor conference promised that ‘there shall be no strikes, lockouts, or work stoppages of any kind during the war.’”4 As a result, arbitration became compulsory to preventing strikes by the unions or lockouts by the owners during war time. This is evident in the number of arbitration cases that the International Union of United Automobile, Aircraft & Agricultural Implement Workers of America [UAW] entered into between 1942 and 1945, especially in opposition to Douglas Aircraft Company. A number of grievances were filed by employees [who were represented by the UAW] against Douglas Aircraft over such issues as unfair termination and pay reduction. However, general arbitration cases regarding such topics as seniority, wages, vacation and sick pay, and work hours were also mediated during this period.

A number of other arbitration cases that took place during the war years are documented in this collection including the Screen Cartoonist Guild [SCG] verses Walt Disney Productions, regarding the termination of employees and contract negotiations from 1942-1946; the United Shoe Workers of America [USW] versus Cobblers Incorporated, regarding wage rates for job classifications in the factory from 1944-1946; and Oil Workers International Union [OWIU] versus Shell Oil company regarding the promotion of one employee over another in 1945. As with the UAW cases, these arbitrations occurred during the volatile war years. Had arbitration not been entered into and a settlement could not be reached, the War Labor Dispute Act [1941] gave the President the legal authority to take over a business temporarily if a work stoppage interrupted war production.5 Consequently, it was beneficial for management to enter into arbitration with a union to settle disputes rather than risk a strike during World War II

  1. Kurt Braun. Labor Disputes and Their Settlement. Baltimore, Maryland: The John Hopkins Press, 1944, p. 212.
  2. Kenneth Kressel & Dean G. Pruitt. Mediation Research: the Process & Effectiveness of Third-Party Interventions. San Francisco, California: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1989, p. 94.
  3. Braun, p. 212.
  4. Ibid, p. 41.
  5. Ibid, p. 255

SCOPE & CONTENT NOTES

The arbitration case files document various grievances and contract violations between workers and employers that could not be settled during collective bargaining negotiations nor through the regular internal grievance process. One or more area arbitrators were used to decide the cases represented in the collection. Documentation found within the case files include arbitration awards, decisions, and dissenting opinions; correspondence; exhibits; hearing proceedings and transcripts; notes; testimony and statements. The files are arranged in alphabetical order by the name of the union and then by local.

RELATED UAC COLLECTIONS

Related research collections in the Urban Archives Center that contain other arbitration case files or relate specifically to unions found within this collection include:

RELATED DIGITAL COLLECTIONS & PROJECTS

RELATED RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

Other archival repositories with materials on arbitration, industrial relations and labor disputes in California include the following:

SECONDARY SOURCES

Published sources available in the University Library's general book collection on the subject of labor disputes and industrial arbitration include:


IMPORTANT SUBJECTS & PERSONALITIES


CONTENTS & SERIES DESCRIPTIONS

5.5 linear feet

1 oversize box

This collection is not arranged into series. It is arranged alphabetically by case title.

LIST A -- ALPHABETICAL LISTING OF UNIONS REPRESENTED IN CASE FILES

A complete box/folder Location Index for unions and companies represented in the collection can be found at the end of this descriptive finding guide.

LIST B -- ALPHABETICAL LISTING OF ARBITRATORS REPRESENTED IN THE CASE FILES


BOX LISTING

SERIES I: Box ARB 1 of 10 [AS/RS 3 0700 10749 6282]

SERIES II: Box ARB 2 of 10 [AS/RS 3 0700 10749 6290]

SERIES III: Box ARB 3 of 10 [AS/RS 3 0700 10749 6308]

SERIES VI: Box ARB 4 of 10 [AS/RS 3 0700 10749 6316]

SERIES V: Box ARB 5 of 10 [AS/RS 3 07900 10749 6324]

SERIES VI: Box ARB 6 of 10 [AS/RS 3 0700 10749 6332]

SERIES VII: Box ARB 7 of 10 [ AS/RS 3 0700 10749 6340]

SERIES VIII: Box ARB 8 of 10 [AS/RS 3 0700 10749 6357]

SERIES IX: Box ARB 9 of 10 [AS/RS 3 0700 10749 6365]

SERIES X: Box ARB 10 of 10 [ AS/RS 3 0700 10749 6373]

OVERSIZE MATERIAL

Box (OV) ARB 1 of 1 [AS/RS 3 0700 10749 6407]

Folder 1

Folder 2

Folder 3

Folder 4

Folder 5

Folder 6

Folder 7

Folder 8


NON-MANUSCRIPT MATERIAL
PHOTOGRAPHS

[Note: Location - Box ARB 1/Folder 14 - BRT vs. Pacific Electric Railway Company: Company’s Exhibit Nos. V - Z.]

ALPHABETICAL LISTING OF ARBITRATORS REPRESENTED IN THE CASE FILES

[End Box Listing]


APPENDIX A
LOCATION INDEX

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