Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives Printed Ephemera Collection on the Communications Workers of America
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Abstract
The Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives Printed Ephemera Collection on the Communications Workers of America is an artificial collection, collected and assembled by the Tamiment Library over the course of several decades. The collection consists of contracts, agreements, constitutions, convention proceedings, and reports, as well as printed ephemera such as fliers, circular letters, newspapers clippings, pamphlets and publications ranging in date from 1941-2008. A substantial portion of the material comes from the national body of the CWA and its various departments, however there is also material in the collection from districts and locals from around the country, but largely from locals in and around the New York area.
Historical/Biographical Note
The Communications Workers of America was founded in 1947, the culmination of over fifty years of organizing efforts in the telephone industry. During the next twenty-five years and under the leadership of Joseph A. Beirne the CWA moved aggressively to organize all the telephone workers in the United States. AT&T with its monopolistic control resisted. It was, however, not until 1974 after years of labor-management unrest and a series of strikes that AT&T agreed to system wide collective bargaining. Shortly after the national contract was signed Beirne died and was replaced as President by Secretary-Treasurer Glenn E. Watts.
In the 1980s the CWA began to expand beyond telecommunications creating a Public Employees Department that successfully organized 34,000 New Jersey state workers in 1981. In 1985 Morton Bahr became the CWA President. The CWA continued to grow due to a series of mergers. In 1987 the it merged with the International Typographical Workers Union, in 1992 it absorbed the National Association of Broadcast Employees, and in 1995 the Newspaper Guild merged with the CWA as well.
Arrangement
The collection is arranged into three series: Series I: General Files, 1946-2008; Series II: Districts and Locals, 1941-2006; Series III: Agreements and Contracts, 1947-2008. Folders are arranged alphabetically within Series I and II. Series III is described at the box level.
Scope and Content Note
The Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives Printed Ephemera Collection on the Communications Workers of America consists of contracts, agreements, constitutions, convention proceedings, and reports, as well as printed ephemera such as fliers, circular letters, newspapers clippings, pamphlets and publications.
Series I: General Files, 1946-2008, consists of a broad range of printed material published by and collected about the Communications Workers of America. There are constitutions and convention proceedings as well as reports from executive board members. In this series there are also a number of files on prominent leaders and staff members of the Communications Workers of America. These files include material on CWA Presidents and national officers, Joseph Beirne, Glenn Watts, Morton Bahr and Barbara Easterling as well as leaders in various locals and districts. There are pamphlets and publications put out by the Education and Training Departments, including songbooks and manuals, as well as numerous brochures outlining membership in the CWA, benefits, union democracy, and collective bargaining among other basic facts about unions. This series contains several works outlining the history of telephone workers and organizing in the telephone industry, as well as numerous clippings documenting a broad range of events in CWA history. Information about important strikes from 1947-2000, including the 1989 strike with NYNEX, can also be found in this series.
Series II: Districts and Locals, 1941-2006, contains material generated by the locals and districts of the Communications Workers of America all across the United States. However, the activities of locals from the New York and New Jersey area are better represented. Included in this series, is material on various rank and file committees of Local 1101 of New York City, including the publication The Bell Wringer, as well as the United Action Caucus and the Telephone Workers Legal Defense Committee. The Workers Education Local 189, once a part of the American Federation of Labor and now known as the United Association for Labor Education, sent out informative mailings and newsletters, the collection contains a sampling of these mailings from 1994-2000, as well as directories to labor education.
Series III: Agreements and Contracts, 1947-2008, consists of five boxes of agreements and contracts.
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Conditions Governing Access
Materials are open without restrictions.
Conditions Governing Use
Because of the assembled nature of this collection, copyright status varies across the collection. Copyright is assumed to be held by the original creator of individual items in the collection; these items are expected to pass into the public domain 120 years after their creation. Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Archives is not authorized to grant permission to publish or reproduce materials from this collection.
Preferred Citation
Published citations should take the following form:
Identification of item, date; Collection name; Collection number; box number; folder number;
Tamiment Library/Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives
Elmer Holmes Bobst Library
70 Washington Square South
New York, NY 10012, New York University Libraries.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Materials in this collection have been compiled by the Tamiment Library. The accession number associated with this collection is 2014.020.
Custodial History
The provenance of the materials is varied. Items were obtained through purchases, donations, standing orders with publishers, arrangements with labor unions and other organizations, exchanges with other libraries, and through ongoing collecting by Tamiment staff.
