35. Labor-Consumers' Research Strike Records,, 1933-1953

Summary: Documents strike of Consumers Research workers that took place between September and December, 1935 After a summer of unsuccessful negotiation and after the dismissal of three employees and one CR Board member, the Technical, Editorial an Office Assistants Union went out on strike. CR maintained the strike was actually a conspiracy by communists to take over the organization. The strike gained immediate attention in national periodicals and newspapers because CR had been considered a liberal or uniquely radical organization and two of its board members, F.J. Schlink and J.B. Matthews, had been recognized as sympathetic to labor and purveyors of often radical economic solutions. As the negotiations went nowhere and the union continued to strike, frustrations were exasperated and positions were hardened. On October 15, 1935 strikers and their supporters stoned CR's buildings and caused extensive damage. This caused a final riff between the union and CR. As the strike continued, the union took their case to liberal organizations, CR subscribers and the National Labor Relations Board. Roger Baldwin, head of the ACLU, formed a committee to arbitrate the strike. CR took its complaints to criminal court. CR lost the NLRB case but ignored the order to rehire the dismissed workers. With no other recourse, the union called off the strike and went to work forming Consumers Union, (publishers of Consumers Reports) to compete with CR.

Includes correspondence, union and CR reports, newspaper and magazine clippings, legal documents, notes, and photographs. Subjects include negotiations, background and events of the strike, arbitration by Baldwin and others, strike publicity, CR personnel involved in strike, labor turnover at CR, left wing connections of the union, subscriber support or cancellations, photographs of picketing, and riot damage to cars and buildings, and legal materials including documents correspondence of William Consodine, Shelton Pitney, Edward Garfield and others and notes for several criminal or civil cases related to the strike. Also includes material concerning the NLRB case brought by the union, transcript of the 1937 NLRB appeal, and a 1978 memoir by Edward Garfield, CR counsel of the proceedings.