UE Historical Files

The UE Historical Files contain important correspondence, memoranda, telegrams, minutes, and resolutions covering the early period of unionization in the electrical, electronics, and radio industries during the 1930s and the New Deal era. The subseries traces the formation of the Committee for Industrial Organization and documents the struggle of isolated AFL federal locals loosely affiliated under the National Radio and Allied Trades Council (NRATC) to forge a national industrial union of electrical workers. Particularly insightful are minutes of the Buffalo meeting (November 1934) of the Radio and Metal Workers Industrial Union that led to the call of a later (December) convention establishing the NRATC.

The radio council's dilemma in incorporating independent metal and machinery locals is dealt with in the minutes of the 1935 NRATC Conference held in Pittsburgh, PA, in December 1935. Rebuffed by the AFL to gain a national charter and recognition of its jurisdiction, Carey and the NRATC aligned with John L. Lewis and John Brophy, two of the key leaders identified with the industrial union movement. Rejecting incorporation by various craft unions (IBEW and IAM) as ordered by the AFL Executive Council and facing suspension, the NRATC cast its lot with CIO and established the United Electrical Workers (UE) in 1936 as the principal industrial union within the electrical and radio industries.

Minutes of the UE's founding convention (Buffalo, March 21-22, 1936) and the 1937 UE convention that approved a merger with machinists' (forming the United Electrical, Radio, Machine Workers of America or UERMWA) locals taken out of the IAM under James Matles, are contained within the subseries. Copies of NRATC resolutions, correspondence, and "open letters" submitted to the AFL Executive Board are included within the series, as well as AFL executive orders and correspondence regarding the suspension of locals formerly affiliated with the NRATC. Correspondents include George Meyer, Harry Block, William Green, Joseph England, John L. Lewis, and John Brophy.