XVIII. POLITICAL ISSUES FILES OF PRESIDENT JAMES B. CAREY, 1949-1965

Grouped in two sequences, Political Issues and Legislation, and arranged alphabetically thereunder.

IUE President James B. Carey and his executive staff maintained a extensive office files pertaining to sundry political and legislative issues impacting upon the IUE membership, the American labor movement, and working people in general. This series documents the union's political action activities during election years on behalf of pro-labor candidates, IUE lobbying efforts for the passage of significant labor, economic, and social legislation before Congress, and the organization's critique of federal policies and executive action on a number of wide-ranging issues.

Important subject areas include: fair employment practices, composition of the National Labor Relations Board and its rulings, civil rights, tax reform, federal appointees, defense mobilization programs, extension and increase of the minimum wage and social security, privatization issues, labor reform legislation, and social entitlement programs.

The IUE's influence within the Democratic Party and the councils of the National Democratic Committee, among leading political figures and liberal organizations (such as the Americans for Democratic Action) is also encapsulated by this the series. Carey's Political Issues files contain correspondence between the union and Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson, representative cabinet-level officers (i.e., Secretaries of Labor James P. Mitchell, Maurice Tobin), federal agencies and commissions (Atomic Energy Commission), important congressional figures (Senators John F. Kennedy, Stuart Symington, John McClellan) and governors (George Romney, Michigan, and William O'Neill, Ohio).

The Legislative portion of Carey's Political Issues Files are less extensive but contain important correspondence, telegrams, memoranda, and research material documenting the political debate over passage of labor reform legislation from 1957-1959. The bulk of the subseries is devoted to IUE analysis of pending labor reform bills (chiefly the proposed Kennedy-Ervin Labor Reform Bill, McClellan's Labor Bill of Rights amendment, and the Landrum-Griffin Act) and union efforts to defeat the most virulent anti-union provisions of these measures. Carey's extensive correspondence with senators and house members is contained within these files.

Other representative legislative areas include: aging, agriculture, education, and fair labor standards. Two files of legislative correspondence and memoranda (dating from 1960-1962) generated by IUE Legislative Director Kenneth Peterson document the status of pending labor, economic, and social legislation before Congress and the IUE's lobbying strategy behind the support and opposition of various bills for this period. These files illustrate the IUE's commitment of financial and lobbying resources in support of President Kennedy's legislative initiatives. This series supplements the more extensive political and legislative material contained within the IUE Legislative Department Records subgroup.