Organization and Field Services Department, AFL Federal Local Union (FLU), CIO Local Industrial Union (LIU), and AFL-CIO Directly Affiliated Local Union (DALU) Charter Records
Collection
0002-LBR-RG28-007
The Organization and Field Services Department is responsible for supporting AFL-CIO union organizing. Charters, or certificates of affiliation, represent the official record of a labor organization's affiliation with the American Federation of Labor (AFL), the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), and subsequently the AFL-CIO. This collection consists of charter applications, charter records, correspondence, data collection forms, bylaws and constitutions, collective bargaining agreements, receipts, legal and jurisdictional records, financial reports, newspaper clippings, and charter copies.
This collection is open to the public and must be used in the Special Collections reading room. Researchers must register and agree to copyright and privacy laws before using this collection.
Photocopies or digital surrogates may be provided in accordance with Special Collections and University Archives duplication policy.
Copyright resides with the creators of the documents or their heirs unless otherwise specified. It is the researcher's responsibility to secure permission to publish materials from the appropriate copyright holder.
Archival materials may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal and/or state right to privacy laws or other regulations. While we make a good faith effort to identify and remove such materials, some may be missed during our processing. If a researcher finds sensitive personal information in a collection, please bring it to the attention of the reading room staff.
13.125 Linear Feet
This collection consists primarily of charter applications, charter records, correspondence, data collection forms, bylaws and constitutions, collective bargaining agreements, receipts, legal and jurisdictional records, financial reports, newspaper clippings, charter copies of AFL Federal Local Unions (FLU), CIO Local Industrial Unions (LIU), and AFL-CIO Directly Affiliated Local Unions (DALU) (both newly created DALUs under the AFL-CIO and DALUs converted from FLUs and LIUs when the AFL and CIO merged).
Folders are arranged chronologically by union number. Contents of folders appear to be both chronological and reverse chronological; contents of folders have not been rearranged.
The Organization and Field Services Department transferred these records to the George Meany Memorial Archives in 2006. The George Meany Memorial Archives transferred these records as part of a major transfer of their archive and library holdings to the University of Maryland Libraries in 2013.
This collection has been minimally processed. Rusted paperclips have been removed and the collection has been re-boxed but not re-foldered. Obvious
duplicates have been removed.
Sarah Springer at the George Meany Memorial Archives initially processed these records in 2008. The University of Maryland Libraries received the records and the finding aid in 2013. In 2017, Bria Parker exported and cleaned the finding aid contents from the Eloquent Systems database using OpenRefine, and finally transformed the finding aids into Encoded Archival Description (EAD) using a series of programmatic scripts. The finding aid was ingested into ArchivesSpace in 2017, at which point Jennifer Eidson updated the descriptive content for accuracy. Revisions include changes to biographical/historical notes, scope and content notes, and the creation of new collection numbers. Jennifer Eidson also enhanced custodial histories and re-wrote collection titles to better conform to archival standards.
Part of the Special Collections and University Archives