Burton Hall Papers
Call Number
Dates
Creator
Extent
Language of Materials
Abstract
Burton Hall was an attorney in New York who set up practice in 1960 as a labor lawyer. He began by handling a union insurgency case which then led to others, so that his practice was almost entirely comprised of representing rank-and-file members suing to protect their democratic rights within their unions. The collection principally consists of legal case files, including affidavits, depositions, motions, District Court and appellate briefs, exhibits, appendices, transcripts and correspondence. The collection provides a wealth of information about the politics and culture of rank-and-file organizing.
Biographical Note
Burton Hall (1929-1991) was born in South Orange, New Jersey in 1929. He graduated from Williams College in 1951 and Yale Law School in 1954. While in college and law school, Hall was a member of the Food, Tobacco and Agricultural Workers Union in Camden, New Jersey, the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union, Local 11, and the International Association of Machinists, Local 751, on the West Coast. He served in the U.S. Army from 1954 to 1956. He was admitted to the New York bar in 1957 and worked as a lawyer for a private firm and the Federal Aviation Agency before turning to labor law.
Hall set up his own practice in 1960 as a labor lawyer. Unintentionally at first, he found himself handling a union insurgency case which then led to others, so that his practice was almost entirely comprised of representing rank-and-file members suing to protect their democratic rights within their unions.
His office was located at 136 Liberty Street in Lower Manhattan. When the building was demolished to make way for the World Trade Center, he moved to 401 Broadway. His firm, Hall, Clifton & Schwartz, formed in 1980. Wendy Sloan became an associate in 1982 and the firm of Hall & Sloan was formed in 1984.
Hall was one of the pioneer attorneys in developing the case law for the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959, also known as the Landrum-Griffin Act. His precedent-setting cases involved protection of the rights guaranteed by law in the section of the Act known as the "Bill of Rights" of union members. For instance, in Salzhandler v. Caputo, one of the earliest of the many disciplinary cases litigated by Hall for members of the Painters' Union, Hall articulated the right of free speech in unions in broad and unequivocal terms. Salzhandler was the first of many landmark cases which established legal protection for the rights of union members. Hall represented rank-and-filers in numerous cases involving issues such as eligibility for running for union office, discipline against members for criticism of their leadership, and expulsion of union members for advocating radical political ideas.
Burton Hall died in 1991 at age 61.
Bibliography:
Autocracy and Insurgency in Organized Labor. ed. Burton H. Hall. (New Brunswick: Transaction Books, 1972).Benson, H. W. Democratic Rights for Union Members: A Guide to Internal Union Democracy. (New York: Association for Union Democracy, 1979).Benson, Herman. "Insurgency and Reform in the Painters: 1960-1987." (unpublished paper at Wagner Labor Archives).Cook, Alice H. Union Democracy: Practice and Ideal. (Ithaca: Cornell, 1963).Corruption and Racketeering in the New York City Construction Industry. Interim Report by the New York State Organized Crime Task Force. (Ithaca: ILR Press, 1988).Corruption and Racketeering in the New York City Construction Industry. Final Report to Governor Mario M. Cuomo. Ronald Goldstock, Director, New York State Organized Crime Task Force. December, 1989.Crowe, Kenneth C. Collision: How The Rank And File Took Back The Teamsters. (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1993).The Edge: Organized Crime, Business, and Labor Unions. President's Commission on Organized Crime. Report to the President and the Attorney General. (Washington: GPO, Oct. 1985).Frank, Miriam. "New York City's Carpenters Unions - The Status of Union Democracy." (1988: unpublished paper at Wagner Labor Archives).Fink, Leon and Greenberg, Brian. Upheaval in the Quiet Zone: A History of Hospital Workers Union, Local 1199. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1989).Freeman, Joshua B. In Transit: The Transport Workers Union in New York City, 1933-1966. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989).Hutchinson, John. The Imperfect Union: A History of Corruption in American Trade Unions. (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1972).McLaughlin, Doris B. and Shoomaker, Anita. The Landrum-Griffin Act and Union Democracy. (University of Michigan Press, 1979).Summers, Clyde W. Democracy In A One-Party State. Maryland Law Review, Inc. Vol. 43, Number 1, 1984).Summers, Clyde W. and Rabin, Robert J. The Rights of Union Members. ACLU Handbook. 1979.Summers, Clyde W., Rauh, Joseph L., Benson, Herman. Union Democracy and Landrum-Griffin. Association for Union Democracy, 1986.Taft, Philip. Corruption and Racketeering in the Labor Movement. (Ithaca: ILR Press, 1958).Waldinger, Roger, and Bailey, Thomas. "The Continuing Significance of Race: Racial Conflict and Racial Discrimination in Construction." (Published Paper, Conservation of Human Resources, Columbia University, January, 1991).Waldinger, Roger D. Through the Eye of the Needle: Immigrants and Enterprise in New York's Garment Trades. (New York: NYU Press, 1986)Zausner, Philip. Unvarnished: The Autobiography of a Labor Leader. (New York: Brotherhood Publishers, 1941).
Arrangement
The Burton Hall Papers are arranged into five series.
Series I: Burton Hall - General
Series II: Union Democracy Cases
Series II: Employment Discrimination
Series IV: Photographs
Series V: 2007-2008 Accretions
Series I to Series IV are arranged alphabetically by subject/author heading or chronologically depending on the nature of the series.
Series V has not been arranged by an archivist. The order in which these materials were sent to the Tamiment Library has been maintained.
Scope and Content Note
This collection documents approximately thirty years of the union democracy movement, from the 1960s to the 1990s. It provides an opportunity to examine the development of a significant portion of the case law which gave meaning and substance to the rights guaranteed by the Landrum-Griffin Act, also known as the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959. The legal records, include affidavits, depositions, motions, District Court and appellate briefs, exhibits, appendices, transcripts, and correspondence. These materials provide a wealth of information about the politics and culture of rank-and-file organizing in general and rank-and-file organizing within specific unions. Additionally, the newspapers, flyers, programs, platforms, campaign literature, reports, annotated minutes, correspondence, and a small number of photographs provide a rich data base for documenting the vital sub-culture of union insurgents, as many of the cases stemmed from an individual who was part of some organized opposition group.
Of particular note is the correspondence found in the collection. Burton Hall maintained a lively correspondence with those he represented. The letters from John Cole, Seafarer (Cole v. Paul Hall, SIU); Harold Robbins, Painter, District Council 9 (former bodyguard to Trotsky); and those to the plaintiffs in Gordon v. Winpisinger (IAM) are outstanding examples. The collection contains a vast amount of correspondence wherein Hall would lay out a legal argument, either to a Judge sitting on one of his cases, to the opposing Counsel, or to one of the many attorneys who wrote seeking his expert advice, or copies of his briefs.
Subjects
Organizations
Genres
People
Topics
Places
Donors
Conditions Governing Access
Materials are open without restrictions.
Conditions Governing Use
Copyright (or related rights to publicity and privacy) for materials in this collection, created by Burton Hall and held by Wendy Sloan and the estate of Burton Hall (care of Harriet Dieterich, administrator) was not transferred to New York University. Permission to use materials must be secured from the copyright holder.
Preferred Citation
Published citations should take the following form:
Identification of item, date; Burton Hall Papers; WAG 087; box number; folder number; Tamiment Library/Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, New York University.
Location of Materials
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Donated by the Estate of Burton Hall and in agreement with his family (sister Harriet Hall Dieterich, brother Henry P. Hall, and former partner Wendy Sloan) in 1992. An accretion to the records was donated in agreement with Wendy Sloan, Esq. in 2007-2008. The accession numbers associated with these gifts are 1992.015 and 1992.016.
Custodial History
The records of Burton Hall were transferred from the office of Hall & Sloan at 401 Broadway, New York City, to the Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives in two installments in the summer of 1992. The records were donated by agreement with the Executor for the Estate of Burton Hall, Ellen Winner, Esq. of Rabinowitz, Boudin, Standard, Krinsky, & Lieberman, and in agreement with his family (sister Harriet Hall Dieterich and brother Henry P. Hall). An accretion to the records was transferred to the Wagner Labor Archives, in agreement with Wendy Sloan, Esq., (former) partner of Burton Hall, in 2007-2008.
Audiovisual Access Policies and Procedures
Audiovisual materials have not been preserved and may not be available to researchers. Materials not yet digitized will need to have access copies made before they can be used. To request an access copy, or if you are unsure if an item has been digitized, please contact tamiment.wagner@nyu.edu, (212) 998-2630 with the collection name, collection number, and a description of the item(s) requested. A staff member will respond to you with further information.
About this Guide
Processing Information
Photographs were separated from this collection during initial processing and were established as a separate collection, the Burton Hall Photographs (PHOTOS 062). In 2013, the photograph collection was reincorporated into the Burton Hall Papers (WAG 087).
Series V has not been arranged by an archivist. A box-level inventory has been provided with basic description outlining which cases are in each box.
The collection inventory was most recently updated in September of 2017. Empty folders previously marked as "***" were removed and in some cases mis-filed folders were repatriated to their places in Series I through IV. Due to the elimination of empty "***" folders, folder numbering may not be consecutive in some boxes.