Primary Sources: The 1960s: Labor & Employment

"1968 CALIFORNIA GRAPE STRIKE, reported by Nanette Rainone. Dolores Huerta, Vice President of the National Farm Workers Union, along with three farm laborers, discuss the strike. BROADCAST: WBAI, 8 Dec. 1968. (ca. 45 min.) BB3904 Pacifica Radio Archives."

"This digital collection contains exhibit documents, exhibit images, interview documentation, and oral histories. Not all items are open to the general public. Some audio oral histories have not been transcribed in English and Spanish. If you wish to assist the library with transcribing and/or translating these interviews, please contact Matt Cook. Additional materials are located in the University Archives."

"AN ACCOUNT OF THE REHABILITATION OF AN ELECTRICIAN WHO IS TOTALLY AND PERMANENTLY BLINDED BY AN ACCIDENT. SHOWS HOW HIS COURAGE AND EFFORTS HELP HIM TO COMPLETE TRAINING UNDER FEDERAL, STATE, AND PRIVATE PROGRAMS WHICH ENABLES HIM TO RETURN TO HIS JOB."

"The Bracero History Archive collects and makes available the oral histories and artifacts pertaining to the Bracero program, a guest worker initiative that spanned the years 1942-1964. Millions of Mexican agricultural workers crossed the border under the program to work in more than half of the states in America."

"During the mid-twentieth century, the American Labor Movement reached a pinnacle of power and influence within society. The extent of labor's reach was often seen in its concerted efforts to secure better pay, better working conditions and reliable pensions for its members. This digital repository enables scholars to study broad trends in U.S. labor and industrial relations by providing access to original materials from a variety of authors, organizations and government agencies, which together provide a multi-disciplinary perspective on the life and times of the labor movement between 1945 and 1980. The collection includes original documents, pamphlets, company publications, union reports, student papers and theses, and is divided into five areas of focus: General Labor; Longshore Workers; Minority Workers; Older Workers; and Personnel Policies."

"THE DELANO GRAPE STRIKE: Cesar Chavez introduced by Hank Anderson. Cesar Chavez, President of the National Farm Workers Association, spoke in Berkeley under the auspices of of Citizens for Farm Labor, on January 5, about the progress of the Delano Grape Strike and the history of the National Farm Workers Association. He is introduced by Henry Anderson, Chairman of Citizens for Farm Labor. - RECORDED in Berkeley. BROADCAST: KPFA, 15 January 1966. (29 min.) BB2358 Pacifica Radio Archives."

"Primary source accounts: photographs, oral histories, videos, essays and historical documents from the United Farm Worker Delano Grape Strikers and the UFW Volunteers who worked with Cesar Chavez to build his farmworker movement."

"Shows the degradation and exploitation of millions of migratory farm workers in the United States. Spokesmen for the groups present their views, both for and against the use of migratory workers under the conditions seen."

"ILHOP is the largest and longest-running, labor-focused oral history project in the world.
You can access more than 1,000 streaming audio files and interview transcripts through the University of Iowa’s Digital Library, or by visiting the State Historical Society of Iowa. "Description from https://www.iowalaborhistory.org/ilhop-1

Archives at the Industrial Workers of the World website, includes things such as a documents library, IWW Resolutions,Chronology of the IWW's History, etc.

"The Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation & Archives is the unit of Catherwood Library that collects, preserves, and makes accessible special collections pertaining to the history of the workplace and labor relations." Some items are available online.

"This multi-media web site brings the vital history of Seattle's civil rights movements to life with scores of video oral histories, hundreds of rare photographs, documents, movement histories, and personal biographies, more than 300 pages in all. Based at the University of Washington, the Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project is a collaboration between community groups and UW faculty and students."

"Georgia State University's Southern Labor Archives, established in 1971, is dedicated to collecting, preserving and making available the documentary heritage of Southern workers and their unions, as well as that of workers and unions having a historic relationship to the region. The largest accumulation of labor records in the Southeast, the Archives holdings include organizational records, pamphlets, periodicals, photographs, personal papers of labor leaders, oral histories, collective bargaining agreements, constitutions and bylaws, and convention proceedings from 1888 to the present."

"The United Farm Workers of America is the most influential farm-labor union in America. Founded in southern California, in the small San Joaquin Valley agricultural town of Delano in 1962, and led by Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta and others, the United Farm Workers of America (UFW) has ceaselessly battled some of the most powerful forces in the agribusiness industry in an attempt to organize farm laborers, raise wages and improve working conditions. Currently Arturo Rodriquez, Chavez’s son-in-law, a union veteran and boycott organizer, heads the UFW and continues to work to organize farm workers."

"This collection presents 470 interview excerpts and 3882 photographs from the Working in Paterson Folklife Project of the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. The four-month study of occupational culture in Paterson, New Jersey, was conducted in 1994. The documentary materials presented in this online collection explore how Paterson's industrial heritage expresses itself in Paterson: in its work sites, work processes, and memories of workers. Included are interpretive essays exploring such topics as work in the African American community, local foodways, the ethnography of a single work place (Watson Machine International), business life along a single street in Paterson (21st Avenue), and narratives told by retired workers."

Debating the Equal Pay Act of 1963

"Recommendations by the National War Labor Board during World War II to pay male and female workers equal wages yielded few changes in the gender wage gap. Women continued to receive less money for comparable work, and into the 1960s want ads characterized jobs as “male” or “female” with resulting salary differences based on gender. The Equal Pay Act (EPA) made it illegal to pay men and women differently for similar work. Although the EPA was passed in 1963, it was debated in workplaces and courtrooms for decades thereafter. In this statement submitted to the Senate hearing on the EPA, the National Retail Merchant Association (NRMA), an organization representing retail employers, claimed that the legislation was unnecessary, expensive, and impossible to enforce. While professing that equal pay for women was “an admirable principle,” the NRMA also argued that high rates of absenteeism and protective legislation made women more expensive to employ than men."

"Lillian Roberts came to New York in 1965 during a peak in labor militancy led by state and municipal government employees. Teachers, social workers, and sanitation workers all fought for better working conditions, improved pay scales, and reformed social services. Roberts, an African-American woman from Chicago, was an organizer for the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), and helped AFSCME’s local D.C. 37 win the right to represent thousands of hospital employees. She led series of strikes at New York State hospitals to protest Governor Nelson Rockefeller’s opposition to unionization. Her efforts landed her in jail for a month, where she found it hard despite gestures of solidarity from her fellow prisoners."

"In the following testimony from 1969, two migrant farmworkers from Florida and a UFW organizer from Washington State discussed their experiences and proposed legislative remedies to a Senate subcommittee. "

"In the early 20th century, large-scale commercial agriculture displaced family farms, tenant farmers, and sharecroppers. Hand labor, however, remained more cost effective for harvesting certain fruits and vegetables. Farmworkers under this new system were hired only for seasonal work and had to travel frequently. The migratory experience left these workers—primarily Mexicans, Mexican Americans, African Americans, Puerto Ricans, and Filipinos—permanent outsiders and vulnerable to exploitation, low wages, and wretched working and living conditions. The National Labor Relations Act of 1935 established rights of industrial workers to unionize. The Act omitted farmworkers, though, due in part to fears that the powerful farm growers’ lobby would prevent passage. Organized efforts by unions and others to rescind the exemption failed in subsequent years. In the 1960s, the United Farm Workers of America (UFW), led by Cesar Chavez, started a strike and boycott of table grapes that gained nationwide support. Although California enacted the first state legislation to protect farm labor union organizing in 1975, other states did not follow, and many union gains in California have since been lost. In the following testimony from a 1969 Senate hearing, Frank Pebeahsy, a Comanche Indian from Oklahoma, presented his experiences as a migrant farmworker. Since 1970, fresh fruit consumption in the U.S. has risen sharply increasing the demand for hand labor. Living and working conditions for migrants remain poor in much of the country. " History Matters - GMU

"In the early 20th century, large-scale commercial agriculture displaced family farms, tenant farmers, and sharecroppers. Hand labor, however, remained more cost effective for harvesting certain fruits and vegetables. Farmworkers under this new system were hired only for seasonal work and had to travel frequently. The migratory experience left these workers—primarily Mexicans, Mexican Americans, African Americans, Puerto Ricans, and Filipinos—permanent outsiders and vulnerable to exploitation, low wages, and wretched working and living conditions. The National Labor Relations Act of 1935 established rights of industrial workers to unionize. The Act omitted farmworkers, though, due in part to fears that the powerful farm growers’ lobby would prevent passage. Organized efforts by unions and others to rescind the exemption failed in subsequent years. In the 1960s, the United Farm Workers of America (UFW), led by Cesar Chavez, started a strike and boycott of table grapes that gained nationwide support. Although California enacted the first state legislation to protect farm labor union organizing in 1975, other states did not follow, and many union gains in California have since been lost. In the following testimony from a 1969 Senate hearing, migrant farmworkers from Florida and Texas discussed their experiences and problems. Since 1970, fresh fruit consumption in the U.S. has risen sharply, increasing the demand for hand labor. Living and working conditions for migrants remain poor in much of the country. " GMU History Matters

"Municipal workers led a wave of strikes that made the 1960’s and early 1970’s a highpoint for organized labor militancy in New York City. Teachers, social workers, sanitation workers, and parks employees all fought to improve work conditions, low-paying wage scales, and to reform the city’s social services. Lillian Roberts arrived in New York in 1965 to organize low-paid and often disrespected hospital workers for American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). At the time, AFSCME was competing with the Teamsters to represent the health workers, and the struggle was intense enough for Roberts to carry a brick in her purse. An African-American woman who had grown up on welfare in Chicago, Roberts proved adept at organizing hospital workers, many of whom were African-American women. She and AFSCME prevailed, paving the way for their local D.C. 37 to become the dominant New York municipal union." GMU History Matters

"n the early 20th century, large-scale commercial agriculture displaced family farms, tenant farmers, and sharecroppers. Hand labor, however, remained more cost effective for harvesting certain fruits and vegetables. Farmworkers under this new system were hired only for seasonal work and had to travel frequently. The migratory experience left these workers—primarily Mexicans, Mexican Americans, African Americans, Puerto Ricans, and Filipinos—permanent outsiders and vulnerable to exploitation, low wages, and wretched working and living conditions. The National Labor Relations Act of 1935 established rights of industrial workers to unionize. The Act omitted farmworkers, though, due in part to fears that the powerful farm growers’ lobby would prevent passage. Organized efforts by unions and others to rescind the exemption failed in subsequent years. In the 1960s, the United Farm Workers of America (UFW), led by Cesar Chavez, started a strike and boycott of table grapes that gained nationwide support. Although California enacted the first state legislation to protect farm labor union organizing in 1975, other states did not follow, and many union gains in California have since been lost. In the following testimony from a 1969 Senate hearing, two migrant African-American farmworkers from North Carolina presented their version of a strike. Since 1970, fresh fruit consumption in the U.S. has risen sharply increasing the demand for hand labor. Living and working conditions for migrants remain poor in much of the country." GMU History Matters

"Recommendations by the National War Labor Board during World War II to pay male and female workers equal wages yielded few changes in the gender wage gap. Women continued to receive less money for comparable work, and into the 1960s want ads characterized jobs as “male” or “female” with resulting salary differences based on gender. The Equal Pay Act (EPA) made it illegal to pay men and women differently for similar work. Although the EPA was passed in 1963, it was debated in workplaces and courtrooms for decades thereafter. In this passionately argued Senate hearing testimony, Caroline Davis, Director of the United Automobile, Aerospace, and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW) Women’s Department declared wage discrimination immoral and inefficient. She rebutted EPA’s critics who claimed that women were more expensive to employ than men and compared unequal pay based on gender to workplace discrimination against immigrants, African Americans, industrial workers, and workers in colonial societies. "

"During World War II, a number of states passed legislation to combat salary inequities suffered by women workers. Many unions also adopted standards to insure that female employees received the same salaries as males who performed similar jobs. The Equal Pay Act of 1963, the first Federal legislation guaranteeing equal pay for equal work, prohibited firms engaged in interstate commerce from paying workers according to wage rates determined by sex. The following year, Title VII of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 further prevented sex discrimination in employment. Many jobs traditionally identified as women’s work, however, continued to pay lower salaries than those historically classified as jobs for men. The following studies included in testimony to a 1970 Congressional hearing investigating employment discrimination against women presented a statistical snapshot of women workers. The battle for equal pay for work of comparable worth emerged as the “issue of the eighties,” in the words of Eleanor Holmes Norton, chairwoman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). By the end of the 1980s, the EEOC had initiated lawsuits against more than 40 states for employment discrimination. More than 1,700 localities passed legislation to address pay inequity. "