Title: PROD, Inc. Collection Genre: Records Date: 1972-1979 Size: .75 linear feet, 1 1/2 manuscript boxes ID#: 929 OCLC: ©Walter P. Reuther Library of Labor and Urban Affairs HEFA.01c.update |
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Scope & Contents
Originally deposited in the State Historical Society of Wisconsin between 1977 and 1979 by Arthur L. Fox II, the records of PROD, Inc. were transferred to the Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs in August of 1980 and opened for research in March of 1999.
PROD, Inc. (Professional Drivers Council) was founded as a public interest group dedicated to improving job safety in the trucking industry following a conference sponsored by Ralph Nader in October of 1971. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., its first executive directors, Bruce Posnak and Arthur Fox, were lawyers recruited from Nader’s consumer movement. Gradually, however, PROD developed into a nationwide organization of rank and file Teamsters for whom reforming the union was as much a goal as lobbying Congress and the Federal bureaucracy on behalf of the health and safety interests of over-the-road truckers. At the time of its merger with another dissident Teamsters group, the Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU), in 1979, PROD, under the leadership of Miami Teamster Peter Poulos, claimed a membership of 5,500.
International Brotherhood of Teamsters--Corrupt practices
Truck driving--Safety regulations--United States
Trucking--Law and legislation--United States
[ Box 1]
1-2. Correspondence and reports, misc., 1976-79
3. Meeting announcements, 1977-78
4-5. Membership mailings, 1973-79
6-7. Newsletters, 1972-78
[Box 2 ]
1-2. Press coverage; clippings, n.d., 1974, 1976-79
3. Press releases, 1977-78
4. Trucking safety legislation, testimony, etc. re, 1977-78