Finnegan's research material concerning the administrative affairs of the UE

Throughout the 1950s Finnegan compiled extensive research material concerning the administrative affairs of the UE, its internal problems, and the union's sustained attacks upon the IUE. The UE Research Files extensively document the UE's difficult adjustment in a period of declining membership, government harassment, raiding by other unions, and the erosion of its collective bargaining position vis-`a- vis GE and Westinghouse.

Items include: UE Convention proceedings and resolutions (1950-1957); financial and membership reports (incomplete); press clippings; correspondence; circulars; telegrams; statements; leaflets; and research material on UE contracts and negotiations with Westinghouse and GE. Correspondence and circular letters exchanged between the IUE and UE--chiefly Carey and UE President Albert Fitzgerald--concern UE charges of IUE redbaiting and the IUE's sanctioning of jurisdictional raids on UE locals. Several files document various UE "unity proposals" to the IUE to establish a united bargaining front with the GE and Westinghouse Corporations. These files include the 1955 UE convention resolutions authorizing Fitzgerald-Carey communications to achieve "unity in labor," and the 1956 IUE-AFL-CIO Policy Statement (by Carey) rejecting the UE's unification bid. The IUE-IAM dispute (1956-1957)involving the machinists' attempted amalgamation of several UE districts is extensively covered within several files. Besides containing year-by-year press clipping files on the UE and CPUSA, the subseries covers such subjects as: efforts by the Subversive Activities Control Board to add the UE to its subversive list; Matles' citizenship case; the UE and the Catholic Church; the UE and the world trade union movement; and McCarthyism.