The records consist of a card index to case files of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS) about labor disputes, collective bargaining negotiations, and labor-relations training that the regional staff conducted for employers, unions, universities, and civic organizations in Illinois, northern and central Indiana, Wisconsin, Minnesota, South Dakota, and North Dakota. A few cards contain references to disputes that extended into other states, including Kentucky. Most of the disputes appear to have occurred in small cities or towns, not in regional urban centers. This series indexes the separate series of records titled "Dispute Mediation and Technical Assistance Case Files" (ARC Identifier 1687997).
An assignment control card provides the name of the employer, group of employers, or civic organization; the town and state; the regional FMCS office case number; the reason for FMCS intervention and the date; the number of employees in the establishment and the number in the bargaining unit; the labor union name and number; the existence of a collective bargaining labor agreement; the dates of any labor strike, walkout, lockout, or work stoppage and the number of workers not working; the dates of FMCS actions; and the name of the commissioner or panel of commissioners assigned to mediate the dispute.
Examples of the diverse types of businesses and occupations that are named on the index cards include bakeries and bakers, construction contractors and the building trades, coal mining and miners, dairy processing and dairy workers, distilleries, food producers and retailers, meatpacking companies and butchers, metal forge shops, steel mills, iron and steel workers, petroleum refineries, natural gas works, mineral industries, hospitals, nursing homes, and other medical care establishments, radio and television broadcasting stations, cable television companies, trucking firms, warehouses, sporting goods manufacturers and retailers, papermaking, public schools and school teachers' unions, and government employees at the municipal, state, and federal levels of government.
Some of the labor unions involved in the disputes included the Allied Industrial Workers, the United Auto Workers, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the International Association of Machinists, the United Steelworkers of America, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, and the American Federation of Government Employees. A few of the companies involved in labor-management disputes included United States Steel in Chicago; Wisconsin Steel in Chicago; the Ford Motor Company at several plants in Michigan and Illinois; the Chrysler Corporation in Michigan; the Radio Corporation of American (R.C.A.); Hamms Brewing Company in St. Paul, Minnesota; the Brunswick Corporation in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin; the Lauhauff Grain Company in Danville, Illinois; the Trailmobile Division of Pullman, Incorporated, in Charleston, Illinois; Raybestos-Manhattan, Incorporated, of Crawfordsville, Indiana; and the Thrall Car Manufacturing Company of Chicago Heights, Illinois.
