Battle, Robert "Buddy" III and Marion
Papers	Dates:   1948-1993	Size:      2 linear feet

Buddy Battle was elected to a number of positions in UAW Local 600, culminating in his election as director of Region 1A. He helped set up the union's Foundry Wage and Hour Council in 1946. He served on the UAW Ford national negotiating committee in 1967, 1970 and 1973. Battle, with Horace Sheffield and others, formed the Trade Union Leadership Council, which became the nucleus of the national Negro American Labor Council. He was also active in politics and helped to elect Detroit's first black City Council member, William Patrick, and its first black mayor, Coleman Young.

Marion McClellan Battle was the former wife of Coleman Young. An employee of the Rouge Employees Federal Credit Union, she served for many years as secretary-treasurer of Office Employees International Union Local 42.

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Cockrel ,Kenneth V. and Sheila M. (Part of the Damon J. Keith Collection of African American Legal History)
Papers	Dates:   1959-1999	Size:      19 linear feet

Kenneth Vern Cockrel was born November 5, 1938 and raised in Detroit. He earned a B.A. in political science and his J.D from Wayne State University. Ken Cockrel also became active in politics while at Wayne. While working at the Detroit News to pay his way through school, he met Mike Hamlin and John Watson, and together they formed the League of Revolutionary Black Workers as an umbrella organization uniting local Revolutionary Union Movements, such as the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement (DRUM), and related support groups. In 1971, Cockrel and Motor City Labor League defectors formed the Labor Defense Coalition, which was instrumental in forcing the dismantling of STRESS, a notorious Detroit Police unit. At the same time, Cockrel helped found the law firm, Philo, Maki, Ravitz, Pitts, Moore, Cockrel & Robb. Over the next ten years, he and his colleagues earned reputations as crusaders for working and poor people by winning a number of high-profile lawsuits —cases such as New Bethel, James Johnson, Hayward Brown and Madeline Fletcher. In 1977, Cockrel was elected to a seat on the Detroit City Council as an "independent socialist". Those who had worked on his election campaign regrouped as the Detroit Alliance for a Rational Economy (DARE), and charged themselves with researching various issues Cockrel would face as a councilman such as tax abatement, public health, and attempts to create an independent, mass political force to work for strong community control of basic urban institutions. Disillusioned at his inability to use his Council position to improve conditions in the city, however, he decided not to run for re-election in 1981. He returned to the practice of law, ultimately rejoining his friend and former colleague, Justin Ravitz, at Sommers, Schwartz, Silver & Schwartz in 1988.

Sheila Ann Murphy Cockrel is the daughter of the founders of the Detroit Catholic Worker movement, Louis and Justine L'Esperance Murphy. From 1966-1968 she worked as staff secretary for the West Central Organization. In the late sixties and early seventies, as a founder of the Ad-Hoc Action Group, the Motor City Labor League and the Labor Defense Coalition, Cockrel honed her organizing skills in demonstrations and rallies against police brutality, absentee landlords and jail conditions, as well as petition campaigns such as the one to abolish STRESS. At the same time, she helped initiate and maintain a series of city-wide mass educational programs known first as the Control, Conflict & Change Book club, and then, as the From the Ground Up Bookclub. Perhaps the best tests of Murphy's organizing and administrative skills came in 1972 when she successfully managed Justin Ravitz's campaign for Detroit Recorder's Court judge, and again, in 1977 with her stewardship of the Kenneth Cockrel campaign and his Council staff. Longtime political allies, Sheila Murphy and Kenneth Cockrel married in 1978. In 1993 Sheila Cockrel ran successfully for the Detroit City Council and is currently serving on that body.

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Ellickson, Katherine Pollak
Papers	Dates: 1921-1989	Size:    55 linear feet

Katherine Pollak was born September 1, 1905. She was active in workers' education from 1927-1934. She worked at the CIO national office from 1935-1937 as an assistant to the director. Her papers include original notes and minutes of the earliest CIO meetings. She returned to the CIO national office from 1942-55 as Associate Director of Research, she focused on Social Security, manpower, farm labor and women and children. At the AFL-CIO national office (1955-61), she was assistant director of the Social Security Department and worked intensively to secure passage of health insurance legislation that was a precursor of Medicare. Her papers and records kept during her years as a member of the President's Commission on the Status of Women reflect the preliminary efforts, which led to its formation as well as her responsibilities as its executive secretary.

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Forrest, Carolyn
Papers	Dates:   1974-1999	Size:      .25 linear feet

Carolyn Forrest was born in Tennessee and moved to Michigan with her husband in 1953. In 1957 she began working at JR Winter Company, which she helped organize for the United Auto Workers (UAW). In 1967 Forrest joined the international staff of Region 1E as the first female servicing representative in the UAW and ten years later was appointed an administrative assistant by UAW President Douglas Fraser. In 1993 she was elected an International Vice President. Forest retired from the UAW in 1998.

Ann Francis, a journeyman pipefitter and member of UAW Local 652, worked at the General Motors Oldsmobile plant in the early 1980's. In 1985 she became a technical instructor in the UAW-GM apprentice program and developed programs to recruit and train women and minorities for the skilled trades. From 1989 until her retirement in 1998, she managed a number of different joint union-management programs for the skilled trades at GM's Lansing plant, the most important of which was the Skilled Trades JOBS Bank for laid-off workers. The Collection consists primarily of publications related to women in the skilled trades.

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National Caucus of Labor Committees
Papers	Dates:   1965-1982	Size:      4.5 linear feet

The National Caucus of Labor Committees is currently known as the National Democratic Policy Committee. In the past it has supported Lyndon LaRouche as a candidate for the U. S. presidency. Its publications include New Solidarity, the Campaigner, and the Organiser.

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Roberson, Dalton (Part of the Damon J. Keith Collection of African American Legal History)
Papers	Dates:   1970's-1980's	Size:      .5 linear feet

Upon graduating from the Detroit College of Law, Roberson went into private practice, and later worked as an assistant Wayne County prosecutor and as an assistant U.S. attorney. He also served as a member and then chair of the Michigan Civil Rights Commission. Roberson was elected to the Detroit Recorders Court in 1974 and eventually became its chief judge in 1987. The Roberson Collection includes correspondence, newspaper clippings, his retirement speech and photos, amongst other material, largely from the period in which he served as a judge.

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Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Constitutions and By-laws
Papers	Dates:   1940s - 1980	Size:      30 linear feet

A collection of constitutions and by-laws of SEIU is now open for research. This collection will interest scholars pursuing research about changes in governance of SEIU affiliates and related subjects.

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SEIU District 925
Papers	Dates:   1973-2004	Size:      15 linear feet

The collection is a significant addition to the Reuther Library’s substantial holdings on women and work, which include the papers of the Coalition of Labor Union Women, Mildred Jeffrey and the 20th Century Trade Union Woman oral
histories. For twenty years, until its restructuring and merger with other SEIU locals in 2001, District 925 successfully organized thousands of librarians, college and university support staff, day care, local government workers and other office, technical and professional employees. This organizing took place in hard-fought campaigns primarily in Massachusetts, Ohio and Washington. Along with 9to5, National Association of Working Women, District 925 lobbied for equal pay, affirmative action, child care, office health and safety and against age discrimination and sexual harassment. In launching District 925, SEIU signaled its recognition of the growing presence of women in the workforce and of clerical work as the single largest sector in that workforce. To meet the needs of both these constituencies, the International simultaneously announced the creation of its Clerical Division, later called the Office Worker Division. The “SEIU District 925 Collection” documents the activities of this effort and is sure to attract scholars pursuing research on this SEIU affiliate and related subjects.

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Society of Women Engineers (SWE)
Oral Histories	Dates:   1940's-1960's	Size:      30 oral histories

The Society of Women Engineers (SWE) Archives has opened a set of thirty oral histories, which demonstrate the integral role women played in the advancement of technology and science in the twentieth century. The project, entitled Profiles of SWE Pioneers, was conducted in 2003 include stories of many “women firsts” and they illustrate significant achievements made by women who began engineering careers from the 1940s through the 1960s. Also documented is the history of SWE’s founding in 1950 and its development as the first organization dedicated to the promotion of women in science and engineering. For a more detailed description of the oral histories visit the SWE Archives Online at www.reuther.wayne.edu/SWEbrochure.html.

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Sporn,Paul
Papers	Dates:   1930’s-1940’s	Size:      1 linear foot

Paul Sporn, Emeritus Professor of English at Wayne State University, acquired the papers in this collection during research for his book, Against Itself: The Federal Theater and Writers' Projects in the Midwest, published in 1995. They consist primarily of playscripts and manuscripts written and produced under the patronage of the federal government's Works Progress Administration in the 1930s-1940s, comprising 1 linear foot of materials..

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UAW Local 12
Papers	Dates:   1949-1985	Size:      2 linear feet

UAW Local 12 evolved out of Federal Labor Union 18384, chartered in 1933 to represent workers at Willys-Overland, Auto-Lite and other auto suppliers in the Toledo area. Richard Gosser, who rose from the ranks at Willys-Overland to become the amalgamated local's president in 1938, founded its summer camp in Onsted, Michigan in 1947. In 1950, the local established an area-wide pension plan covering small shops, which set a national pattern. In 1954, the Jeep Unit of Local 12 opened a diagnostic clinic for its members, which expanded into the Toledo Health and Retiree Center, offering a variety of services to union members throughout the Toledo area. The UAW Local 12 Collection consists primarily of clippings scrapbooks from the 1950s and early 1960s and printed material documenting the Summer Camp Women's Guild's fundraising dances and the local's Health and Retiree Center. The bulk of the local's records remain at its headquarters in Toledo.

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Watson, James Lopez (Part of the Damon J. Keith Collection of African American Legal History)
Papers	Dates:  1960s-1980s (Predominantly 1970s)	Size:      1.5 linear feet

A former New York State Senator and New York City Civil Court Judge, Watson is best known as a judge with the United States Court of International Trade. The Papers of James Lopez Watson, however, primarily concern his affiliation with the National Bar Association, where he was a founding member of its judicial council. The collection also contains correspondences with a number of African-American judges, including judge George Crockett, Jr.