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HTML-Encoded Finding Aid

Title: UAW Chrysler Department Collection

Type  : Records                   

Date  : 1938-1985                 

Size   : 102 linear feet

ID    #:  106-uaw             

OCLC:                 

©Walter P. Reuther Library of Labor and Urban Affairs

HEFA.01d.update

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SCOPE & CONTENTS

Ø     Subjects

Ø     Correspondents

Ø     Transferred

CONTENTS

Ø     Index [Large file]

Finding Aids Return

Scope & Contents

A May, 1938 Walter Reuther proposal led to the creation of separate UAW departments to service union members employed by the major automobile manufacturers.  General Executive Board Member Richard T. Frankensteen became the UAW Chrysler Department’s first director, after having helped to negotiate the UAW’s contract with the Chrysler Corporation following the tumultuous sit-down strikes of 1937.

Since Frankensteen’s departure as department director in 1940, Leo LaMotte, Emil Mazey, Norman Matthews, Douglas Fraser and Marc Stepp have headed the UAW’s Chrysler Department, which is responsible for planning, developing, negotiating, and administering collective bargaining agreements for Chrysler workers in the United States and Canada.

In 1953, Chrysler purchased Briggs Manufacturing, and five years later the UAW Chrysler Department merged with the Briggs UAW Council.  From the 1940s until his retirement in 1978, Arthur Hughes acted as either administrative assistant or assistant director of the Chrysler Department, and many of the files that comprise this collection, containing correspondence, meeting minutes, reports, grievances, contract negotiations and convention material, clippings and other publications, emanated from his office.

Subjects

Afro-American automobile industry workers

Automobile industry workers--Canada

Automobile industry workers--Health and hygiene

Chrysler Corporation

Collective bargaining--Automobile industry--United States

Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement (DRUM)

Eldon Revolutionary Union Movement (ELRUM)

Factories--Safety measures

Grievance arbitration--United States

Pensions--United States

Plant shutdowns--United States

Retirees--United States

Skilled labor--United States

Strikes and lockouts--Automobile industry--United States

Supplemental unemployment benefits--United States

Trade-unions--Organizing--United States

Trade unions and communism--United States

UAW--Community Action Program

United States.--National War Labor Board (1942-1945)

United States.--War Production Board

Correspondents

George Addes

Richard Frankensteen

Douglas Fraser

Arthur Hughes

Leo LaMotte

Norman Matthews

Emil Mazey

Walter Reuther

Marc Stepp

Transferred

A large number of books, contracts and newspapers have been transferred to the Archives Library, and some photographs and political campaign memorabilia have been placed in the Archives Audiovisual Collection.

 

Contents [Large Files]

102 storage boxes

Series I, General Subject Files, 1938-1988, Boxes 1-18, To Series Index

Series II, Local Files, 1941-1984, Boxes 18-29, To Series Index

Series III, Negotiations & Grievances Files, 1939-1985, Boxes 30-102, To Series Index

        PLEASE NOTE:  Folders are computer-arranged alphabetically within each series in this finding aid, but may actually be dispersed throughout several boxes in the collection.  Note carefully the box number for each folder heading.

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