The University of Massachusetts Amherst
Robert S. Cox Special Collections & University Archives Research Center
CredoResearch digital collections in Credo

Collecting area: Labor

Massachusetts Commission on Collective Bargaining

Massachusetts Commission on Collective Bargaining Records

1969-1973
1 box 0.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 023

In 1969, Governor Francis W. Sargeant established a bi-partisan council to review municipal and state collective bargaining practices more than decade after all public employees were extended the right to join unions. Over the next three years, the council heard from both sides, interviewing representatives from management and labor, and holding regional hearings throughout the state. The work of the group culminated in the enactment of the Massachusetts Public Employee Collective Bargaining Law (M.G.L. c.150E) in 1973, which granted full bargaining rights to most state and municipal employees.

The collection includes detailed minutes of meetings, transcripts of testimony, drafts of legislature, reports, and recommendations of the council.

Subjects

Collective bargainingMassachusetts--Politics and government--1951-

Contributors

Massachusetts Commission on Collective Bargaining
Massachusetts State Building & Construction Trades Council

Massachusetts State Building and Construction Trades Council Collection

1959-1972
1 box 0.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 327

An advocate for unionized construction workers in the state, the Massachusetts State Building and Construction Trades Council collection consists chiefly of conference proceedings.

Subjects

Construction workers--Labor unions--MassachusettsLabor unions--Massachusetts

Contributors

Massachusetts State Building and Construction Trades Council
Massachusetts State Employees Association. University of Massachusetts Chapter

MSEA University of Massachusetts Chapter Records

1955-1978
10 boxes 4.5 linear feet
Call no.: MS 049

The Massachusetts State Employees’ Association (MSEA) was founded in 1943 to protest proposed changes in the state employees’ retirement system. By 1969, the group had become the exclusive bargaining agent for the University’s administrative, clerical, and technical employees.

This small collection includes the constitution and by-laws of the MSEA along with Executive Board and general body minutes, correspondence, contracts, legislative materials, grievance records, hearing transcripts and decisions pertaining to job reallocations, subject files, newsletters, and press releases that document the UMass chapter of the Massachusetts State Employees’ Association from 1955 to 1978.

Subjects

Collective labor agreements--Education, Higher--Massachusetts--AmherstLabor unions--MassachusettsUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst
Nashua (N.H.) Labor Council

Nashua (N.H.) Labor Council Collection

1989-1990
1 box 1.5 linear feet
Call no.: MS 286

Established as the newspaper of organized labor in New England in 1989, the New England Labor News and Commentary was the official newspaper of the Nashua, N.H. Labor Council.

Subjects

Labor unions--New EnglandLabor--New England--Periodicals

Contributors

Nashua (N.H.) Labor Council
New England Labor and Community Network

New England Labor and Community Newsletters

1979-1984
1 envelope 0.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 202 bd

Includes eleven of the thirteen newsletters published by the Labor and Community Network, a group of academics and trade unionists interested in labor issues in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island.

Subjects

Labor--New England--PeriodicalsNew England--Social conditions--PeriodicalsWorking class--New England--Periodicals

Types of material

Newsletters
New England Telephone Workers’ Strike

New England Telephone Workers Strike Collection

1989
1 folder 0.15 linear feet
Call no.: MS 323

In 1989, almost 60,000 telephone workers in New England and New York waged a successful fifteen week strike against Nynex to protest a new contract that threatened cuts to medical benefits.

This small collection includes three handouts and a bulletin documenting the four-month labor strike carried out by New England telephone workers (represented by the Communications Workers of America and International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers unions) against the NYNEX corporation.

Subjects

NYNEX CorporationNew England--Economic conditions--20th centuryStrikes and lockouts--Telephone companies--New England --HistoryTelephone companies--Employees--Labor unions--New England--History

Contributors

Communications Workers of AmericaInternational Brotherhood of Electrical Workers

Types of material

Handbills
New Song Library

New Song Library Collection

1960-2018
16 boxes 24 linear feet
Call no.: MS 1043

New Song Library letterhead

Founded by Johanna Halbeisen in 1974, the New Song Library was a collaborative resource for sharing music with performers, teachers and community activists, who in turn shared with a wide variety of audiences. Based initially in Boston, the Library was devoted to the music of social change and particularly music that reflected the lives and aspirations of workers, women and men, elders and young people, gays and lesbians, other minorities, and Third World people.

This collection contains over forty years of organizational and operational records of the New Song Library along with hundreds of sound recordings, primarily audiocassettes made at concerts, music festivals, song swaps, and gatherings of the People’s Music Network. The Library also collected newsletters and magazines on folk music, and most importantly dozens of privately produced songbooks and song indexes.

Gift of Johanna Halbeisen, 2017-2022

Subjects

Folk music

Types of material

AudiocassettesCatalogsClippings (information artifacts)CorrespondenceMagazines
Northampton Labor Council (AFL-CIO)

Northampton Labor Council Minutebooks

1933-1985
2 boxes 0.75 linear feet
Call no.: MS 055

From its origins in 1899 as the Northampton Central Labor Union, the Northampton Labor Council coordinated political activity and worked for union cooperation in strikes, boycotts, and celebrations. With 29 unions in its ranks by 1903, it was one of the few labor councils to include both AFL and CIO affiliates during the period of their intense competition during the 1930s, however from 1945 until the AFL-CIO merger, CIO unions were excluded. By 1985, the NLC had 14 affiliated local unions.

As the coordinating body for the political and social activities of fourteen labor unions in Northampton, Massachusetts, and the surrounding area, the Labor Council generated union support for strikes, boycotts, and celebrations, and hosting annual Labor Day parades. Includes photocopies of four minutebooks, spanning the years 1933-1985.

Subjects

Central Labor Union (Northampton, Mass.)Labor unions--Massachusetts--NorthamptonNorthampton (Mass.)--Economic conditions--20th centuryNorthampton (Mass.)--Social conditions--20th century

Contributors

Northampton Labor Council (AFL-CIO)
Norton (Mass.) & Mansfield (Mass.)

Norton (Mass.) Merchant's Daybook

1828-1839
1 vol. 0.15 linear feet
Call no.: MS 203 bd

Norton, Mass., was a manufacturing center during the early days of the industrial revolution. During the 1830s and 1840s, its mills turned out sheet copper, cotton goods, boots and shoes, leather goods, iron castings, ploughs, and baskets.

The unidentified owner of this daybook was a general provisioner in the Bristol County, Massachusetts, towns of Norton and Mansfield. This daybook records a relatively brisk trade in relatively small quantities of food, cloth, fuel, wood, shoes, paper goods, glassware, and iron. While the Norton Manufacturing Company (a textile manufacturer) was among the steady customers, the storekeeper also dealt extensively with individuals.

Subjects

General stores--Massachusetts--MansfieldGeneral stores--Massachusetts--NortonMansfield (Mass.)--Economic conditions--19th centuryNorton (Mass.)--Economic conditions--19th centuryNorton Manufacturing Company

Types of material

Daybooks
Olney, Peter B.

Peter B. Olney Papers

1973-2014
32 boxes 48 linear feet
Call no.: MS 1196

A writer, scholar and leader in organized labor for over 50 years, Peter B. Olney began his career in the early 1970s by organizing the machine shop where he worked in Roxbury, Massachusetts into the United Electrical Workers, fully committed to helping the workforce take control of their own lives and destiny. Through periods of extraordinary cultural, technological and industry upheaval, with a particular focus on the immigrant working class community, Olney followed where that commitment led, becoming an “industrial salt” in Boston and Cambridge, bringing a union into non-union facilities or strengthening the union’s position in union facilities; an organizer and researcher at the ILGWU in Southern California; an organizer/coordinator at the Furniture Workers’ office of the IUE in Huntington Park, CA; an organizer at the Janitors’ office of the SEIU in Los Angeles and active in Justice for Janitors; a founding member of the LAMAP (Los Angeles Manufacturing Action Project); the Director of Organizing at the ILWU (International Longshoremen Warehouse Union) for 16 years; Associate Director of the ILE (Institute for Labor and Employment) at the University of California for 3 years; and a member of the faculty at the Building Trades Academy at Michigan State University. He has a Masters in Business Administration from UCLA and regularly contributes to ongoing discussions, publications and scholarship, online and in print, about the changing face of the Labor Movement with particular focus on organizing strategies, class struggles, immigration and the political climate.

Drawing from the records of these many organizations, the Olney Papers provide insights into labor organizing during a period of American history characterized by huge cultural shifts and rapid technological development, and include correspondence, memorandums, notes, white papers, articles, newspaper/magazine clippings and other printed matter, corporate reports and presentations, and a wide variety of  internal administrative documents. Of particular note are strategic planning documents for the organizations with which Olney was engaged.

Gift of Peter B. Olney, 2020

Subjects

Labor movementLabor unions