The records of the Associated Unions of America came to the Society via Donald Cameron over a thirteen year period dating from 1965 to the closing of the Milwaukee office. The records include virtually all of the records kept in that office as well as files acquired from inactive locals and some files representing Donald Cameron's other involvement in the labor movement in the Midwest such as his activity in the Employees Mutual Benefit Association of the Milwaukee Electric Railway and Light Company and the Confederated Unions of America.
Although the records largely concern unions in Wisconsin, the collection is of more general interest because of the rare documentation which it contains
concerning company unions and because of its large number of female and white-collar members. Given the composition of its membership, AUA's history was also unusually strike-prone.
The collection is arranged as three series: records of the Wisconsin Associated Independent Unions, internal administrative records of AUA, and records pertaining to AUA locals. Included are constitutions and by-laws; minutes; correspondence; membership records; financial records; contract negotiation, arbitration and strike files; subject files concerning organizing efforts; statistical data; and clippings. Files of the AUA Report are available on microfilm in the Society Library.
Records of the WISCONSIN ASSOCIATION OF INDEPENDENT UNIONS (WAIU), only a small portion of the collection, date from 1940 to 1941 and include policy statements and proposed amendments, minutes, correspondence, financial reports and miscellany.
The AUA INTERNAL RECORDS, only about fifteen percent of the collection, are arranged as administrative records and an alphabetical subject file.
The administrative records include constitutions, amendments and revisions; correspondence; financial records; and records of AUA's governing bodies, the National Board of Representatives, the General Executive Board, the Policy and Steering Committee, and the Strike Fund Committee. Records of the National Board of Representatives and the General Executive Board are similar in format and informational content. Each contains minutes and correspondence, while the NBR records also includes some miscellaneous material. Both NBR and GEB minutes contain discussions on the status of each local, general union finances, and organizing efforts. The correspondence here includes a large number of form letters sent to NBR and GEB delegates. The Policy and Steering Committee records include minutes, reports, and correspondence, all concerning the direction and progress of organizing work. Strike Fund Committee records consist of a single folder documenting AUA's strategy in developing a strike benefit fund. Included are minutes and sample strike clauses found in the constitutions of several other unions.
National correspondence of a more general administrative character covers the period 1939-1975 and includes exchanges with AUA staff, locals, outside unions, National Representative Carl Van Tilburg, and the Wisconsin Industrial Commission. The correspondence with AUA locals and the inter-office letters deal with issues ranging from proper ventilation in union offices to collective bargaining tactics. The file on Van Tilburg contains candid discussion of organizing tactics, the future of AUA locals, competition from outside unions, and other topics.
Financial records include correspondence, annual examination of accouts, annual and monthly reports, correspondence and miscellany.
The alphabetically-arranged subject files concern Cameron's early organizing work and variously include correspondence, legal briefs and documents, and newspaper clippings. Of special note are the records of the Power Plant Labor Adjustment Committee of the Employee Mutual Benefit Association (with some items dating to 1926) of which Cameron was secretary before his involvement with WAIA and AUA.
LOCAL RECORDS are arranged numerically by local number and include information on twenty-four locals. These records include files maintained in AUA headquarters on the activities of locals, together with the records of inactive locals transferred to the central office. These records generally cover the period 1939 to 1978; they variously include by-laws, minutes, correspondence, membership records, financial records, contract negotiations, and subject files. In many cases, correspondence and contract negotiation material was grouped together at the union office along with minutes of labor-management bargaining meetings, seniority lists, membership lists, wage rate statistics, and contracts. Many of the files reflect the dominating concern of AUA headquarters with contract negotiations. Most extensively documented are locals comprised of office and professional employees of Bucyrus-Erie, Cutler-Hammer, Four Wheel Drive Auto Company, Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company, and the Old Line Life Insurance Company, although some files concern factory workers employed by companies such as Appleton Coated Paper Company. Photographs show supporters on the picket line and other activities during a strike against the Old Line Life Insurance Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 1950.
