VI. UE LOCAL AND DISTRICT FILES OF PRESIDENTIAL ASSISTANT LES FINNEGAN,, 1947-1955

Grouped in two major chronological sequences: 1947-1949 and 1950-1955. Numerically arranged by district and local union.

As Carey's presidential assistant, Finnegan maintained the latter's office memorandums, correspondence, and reference files pertaining to UE districts and locals. These files span the last year of Carey's tenure as UE President (1941), the formation of IUE (1949), and the disaffiliation movement within UE locals and districts during the 1950s. The bulk of the series consists of incoming and outgoing correspondence, telegrams, reports, memoranda, minutes of district and local union meetings, statistical data on membership figures, and resolutions, statements, and press clippings received from UE district and local officers within the pro-CIO camp. Major topics include: allegations of communist domination at the district and local levels; protests registered by pro-CIO locals against unwarranted actions (suspension of officers, seizure of assets, revocation of charters) taken by the UE leadership against right-wing locals; the raiding of UE locals desiring disaffiliation with the UE; and local petitions and resolutions supporting Carey, CIO President Philip Murray, and national CIO policies. There are scant references to local strikes, collective bargaining, and political action activities.

Much of Carey's outgoing correspondence and memoranda chronicle factionalism within UE locals and districts over the national office's left-wing (communist) orientation and deviation from CIO policies. The schism between the UE and CIO over foreign policy issues (the Cold War and the Marshall Plan) and domestic politics (the Progressive Party and the election of 1948) provided the historical context for the correspondence contained within this series. Through close associates Harry Block (President, District #1) and James Click (Business Agent, District #8), Carey sought to forge a broad liberal, anticommunist consensus among the UE rank and file under the banner of the UE Members for Democratic Action (UEMDA) after 1946. During the 1940s the Carey-Block faction mounted a sustained, though unsuccessful, challenge to defeat UE President Albert Fitzgerald, Secretary-Treasurer Julius Emspak, and Organization Director James Matles at the union ballot box.

Through an extensive network of pro-CIO district and local union officers, business agents, and catholic labor activists (Father Charles Owen Rice) affiliated with the Association of Catholic Trade Unionists (ACTU), Carey monitored the activities of the left-wing UE faction and ascertained the relative strength of the UEMDA at the district and local levels. Aided by Block and Click, Carey kept building rank and file pressure to dislodge the UE's leadership and bring that union's policies in line with the CIO.

Extensive coverage is given to District #1 and its locals (especially in Philadelphia) where the UE leadership waged a intensive campaign to discredit the Block-Carey forces. Other key districts include District 2, Local 201 (Lynn,MA); Locals 202,213 (Springfield, MA); District 3, Local 301 (Schenectady, NY); District 5, Local 506 (Erie, PA); District 6, Local 601 (Westinghouse, East Pittsburgh); District 8 and Local 1102 (St. Louis, MO); and District #9, Local 902 (Fort Wayne, IN). The UEMDA's preoccupation with the following UE leaders--Albert Fitzgerald, Julius Emspak, James Matles, Leo Jandreau, William Sentner, John Gojack, Ruth Young, and Thomas Fitzpatrick--is amply documented within the correspondence files.

The second major chronological sequence within the series primarily documents the IUE/UE schism at the district and local levels with chief emphasis upon NLRB elections, organizing campaigns, and the burgeoning disaffiliation movement within the UE during the period 1953-1955. Press clippings, organizing campaign literature (pamphlets, leaflets, broadsides), radio and TV scripts, field representatives' correspondence and reports, and staff memoranda comprise a substantial portion of the material contained within the files. This portion of the series is distinctive for its inclusion of anti-IUE leaflets and circulars generated by the UE to nullify IUE organizing efforts. Inclusive memoranda from Ray Hansen (IUE Publicity Director) to Finnegan document the planning and strategy behind IUE publicity activities in conjunction with campaigns within UE-affiliated plants.

Supporting correspondence and reports from IUE field representatives provide insight on factionalism within UE districts and locals and analyses of the effectiveness of IUE publicity efforts to foment dissension. Representative districts and locals involved in the disaffiliation movement include: UE Local 201 (Lynn, MA); UE District Three and Local 301 (Schenectady, NY); UE District Four; UE Local 506 (Erie, PA); UE Local 601 (East Pittsburgh, PA); and UE Local 937 (St. Joseph and Benton Harbor, MI). Contained within these files are the UE's "Unity Proposals" to the IUE and other unions within the GE and Westinghouse chains, and IUE affiliation agreements with UE Local 301 and UE District 4. Office copies of correspondence between Carey and Jandreau document the UE's legal challenge to Local 301's disaffiliation and subsequent NLRB elections to decertify the UE local.