United Furniture Workers of America contracts and agreements collection
Scope and Content of the Collection
The Contracts and Agreements Collection of the United Furniture Workers of America (1905-1975) includes agreements and contracts between UFWA locals and companies located throughout the United States.
Dates
- 1905-1975
Creator
- United Furniture Workers of America (Organization)
Restrictions on Access
Collection is open for research use.
Terms Governing Use and Reproduction
Georgia State University is the owner of the physical collection and makes reproductions available for research, subject to the copyright law of the United States and item condition. Georgia State University may or may not own the rights to materials in the collection. It is the researcher's responsibility to verify copyright ownership and obtain permission from the copyright holder before publication, reproduction, or display of the materials beyond what is reasonable under copyright law. Researchers may quote selections from the collection under the fair use provision of copyright law.
Collection is stored offsite. Allow at least 2 working days for retrieval.
History of United Furniture Workers of America
Prior to 1937, most organized workers in the furniture industry were members of either the United Brotherhood of Carpenters & Joiners Union or the Upholsterers' International Union (UIU), both of which were affiliated with the American Federation of Labor. Disagreements over political ideology and organizing tactics, fueled by the new emphasis by the fledgling Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) on the organization of all workers in a plant into a single industrial, rather than craft, union, led a group of UIU dissidents to leave the union and affiliate with the CIO as the United Furniture Workers.
The two unions competed for membership among the same group of workers during the 1940s and 1950s. Shortly after the AFL and CIO merged in December of 1955, however, the two unions formed a "confederation for common union action." In this ad hoc organization, each of the unions retained its autonomy but established a joint board to coordinate organizing drives, direct political activities, conduct research, and police the use of the union label. It was seen by some as a first step toward a possible full-fledged merger of the UFWA and the UIU.
The hoped-for merger, however, never materialized. In 1985, rather, the UIU merged its 35,000 members into the vastly larger United Steel Workers of America, and in 1986 the UFWA acted similarly when it merged its 20,000 members into the much larger International Union of Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers (IUE), which subsequently changed its name to the International Union of Electronic, Electrical, Salaried, Machine & Furniture Workers.
Extent
7.92 Linear Feet (in 19 boxes)
Language of Materials
English
Abstract:
The Contracts and Agreements Collection of the United Furniture Workers of America (1905-1975) includes agreements and contracts between UFWA locals and companies located throughout the United States.
Arrangement
The Collection is arranged in order by Local union number, then chronologically within each Local union.
Off-Site Storage
Collection is stored offsite. Allow at least 2 working days for retrieval.
Acquisition Information
These materials were separated from one or more collections in the Southern Labor Archives for inclusion in the Archives’ contracts and agreement collection.
Processing Information
Processed by Robert Bexley, November 2008.
Creator
- United Furniture Workers of America (Organization)
- Title
- United Furniture Workers of America:
- Subtitle
- A Guide to Its Contracts and Agreements Collection at Georgia State University Library
- Status
- Completed
- Author
- Georgia State University Library
- Date
- December 11, 2008
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
Repository Details
Part of the Special Collections Repository
100 Decatur St., S.E.
Atlanta, Georgia 30303
404-413-2880
404-413-2881 (Fax)
archives@gsu.edu