Richmond, California: United Transport Service Employees of America, 1946.
Price: $3,200.00
Hardcover. Group of 25 mimeographed and printed flyers on various colored sheets, measuring between 8½" x 11" and 8½" x 14" , with many with illustrations. Overall very good or better with toning, some creased and with typical general wear, including nicks and tears.
An archive documenting the 1946 unionizing efforts of the CIO-affiliated United Transport Service Employees of America (UTSEA), primarily at the Richmond, California, Pullman Company plant, which employed up to 500 people rebuilding and repairing nearly 300 Pullman cars a year.
The flyers tout the strength of the CIO, the perfidy of the Truman administration, urge workers to combat onerous working conditions, fight efforts to create craft unions (which would divide the workforce into small unions organized by type of work performed -- and, to a certain extent, race, since not all jobs were available to African-American workers), and participate in the union election, among other things. The election went to a national mediating board, but doesn't appear to have been settled in 1946, and involved the AFL-affiliated Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP) as well as a few more localized unions; it is unclear who ultimately won. Also mentioned are several dances and social events held by the UTSEA.
An interesting collection of flyers related to the tumultuous postwar years of labor strikes and unrest.
Item #466441
