SEIU's contributions to the labor movement are unique. It represents a segment of the work force that few other unions deigned worthy of organizing, particularly in the earlier part of the twentieth century. Beginning with a core membership of janitors, elevator operators andwindow washers, SEIU quickly enrolled a full array of public employees as well as building service employees, stadium employees, and a range of non-professional health care workers. Indeed, the 1960 International Constitution and By-Laws lists over one hundred separate occupations and/or venues within its jurisdiction.

The executive office collections document a wide range of subjects, people, and events. These collections include the papers of International Presidents William Quesse (1921-1927), Oscar Nelson (1927-1928), Jerry Horan (1928-1937), George Scalise (1937-1940), William McFetridge (1940-1960), and David Sullivan (1960-1971). The collections also contain the historical records related to local unions, executive officers, international representatives and organizers, and joint councils. In addition, the collections chronicle the international's relationship with labor organizations, politicians, community groups, religious, ethnic, racial and activist organizations, government agencies, and members' employers.

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These relationships often influenced contract negotiations, death gratuity requests, factional and jurisdictional disputes, legislation, agreements, organizational campaigns, strikes, trusteeships, unfair labor practice charges, and raids. Records documenting these issues and activities as well as the international´s interests in automation, civil rights, real estate ventures are also found within these collections.

Like the executive office collections, the "SEIU Research Department Collection" (1942-1979) contains records that address a wide range of important issues. Given its mission to collect and disseminate information that would assist the union during negotiations and organizational campaigns, the Research Department's many reports document the international's priorities and vision. These reports largely comprise statistics generated from collective bargaining agreements, organizing efforts, wages, membership characteristics, and employers. The reports also document the union´s much touted death gratuity program; a program that the leadership considered an important ingredient in the union´s ability to retain members.

Other SEIU collections significantly supplement and expand upon the executive office collections and the "SEIU Research Department Collection." The "Secretary-Treasurer's Files: Affiliate Officers Collection" (1967-1987), for example, provides details regarding leadership changes transpiring within SEIU affiliates beyond the files of local unions and joint councils. The "SEIU International Vice-Presidents Collection" (1938-1981) provides further information about the activities of David Sullivan, Thomas Shortman, and John Sweeney. In this collection, for example, researchers will find these officers mediating internal and factional disputes, directing strikes, negotiations and organizing campaigns, overseeing mergers, and serving as trustees of locals that suffered from mismanagement.

The "SEIU Local 32B-32J Collection" (1961-1981) is another important collection. As the largest local union in 1976, its history is important. This collection is primarily comprised of correspondence between the local's members and leaders. There is also a full array of international and local affiliate publications, which portray the public image of the union, 1929 to the present. Complementing the written records of the SEIU are oral histories that document important facets of the union's history. The oral histories of former SEIU staff members, Richard Liebes, Director of Northern California's Joint Council #2 and Ralph Eliaser, Director of Southern California's Joint Council #8, comprise two significant SEIU oral histories. Discussing the emergence of the union in California during the post World War II era, these two SEIU stalwarts discuss such subjects as George Hardy, World War II, public employee and hospital unionism, amongst other subjects. Found in "Where We Come From Who We Are: Voices of SEIU Local 82 Members," this oral history project illustrates the history of an important SEIU Local. These documentary resources of the Service Employees International Union are central to forming an understanding of a public and service sector that historians have often ignored.

With a current membership exceeding one million, SEIU has played a prominent role in the labor movement for most of the twentieth century. These collections will interest many scholars who seek new avenues of research.

Guides more fully delineating the scope and content of SEIU collections are located at the Archives. For additional information or on how to purchase guides, please contact SEIU Archivist, Louis Jones at (313) 577-4024 or Louis.Jones@wayne.edu.

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SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Beadling, Tom, and others. A Need for Valor: The Roots of the Service Employees International Union, 1902-1992. Washington, D.C.: The Service Employees International Union, 1992.

Building Service Employees International Union. "Going Up!": The Story of Local 32B. New York: Building Service Employees International Union, 1955.

Hearn, Albert G. Building a Dream: The History of a Union for Canadian Service Workers, 1943-1988. Service Employees International Union, 1988.

Jentz, John B. "Citizenship, Self-Respect, and Political Power: Chicago's Flat Janitors Trailblaze the Service Employees International Union, 1912-1921." Labor's Heritage 9, no. 1 (Summer 1997): 4-23.

Jentz, John B. "Labor, the Law, and Economics: The Organization of the Chicago Flat Janitor's Union, 1902-1917." Labor History 38, no. 4 (Fall 1997): 413-431.

Jentz, John B. "Unions, Cartels, and Political Economy of American Cities: the Chicago Flat Janitors' Union in the Progressive Era and 1920s." Studies in American Political Development, 14 (Spring 2000): 51-71.

Ransom, David. "'So Much to be Done': George Hardy´s Life in Organized Labor." Washington, D.C.: Service Employees International Union, 1980.

Service Employees International Union, Local 32B-32J. Local 32B-32J: Sixty Years of Progress, 1934-1994. New York: Service Employees International Union, Local 32B-32J, 1994.

Slater, Joseph Elijah. "Down By Law: Public Sector Unions and the State in America, World War I to World War II." Ph.D. diss., Georgetown University, 1998.