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 Michigan, Ohio, southern Indiana, and northern Kentucky. A few cards contain references to disputes that extended into other facilities in states in other FMCS regions, including Pennsylvania, New York, Louisiana, and Georgia. This series indexes the separate series of records titled "Dispute Mediation and Technical Assistance Case Files" (ARC Identifier 1679487).
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, or work stoppage and the number of workers not working; the dates of FMCS actions; and the name of the commissioner or panel assigned to mediate the dispute.
Examples of the diverse types of businesses and occupations that are documented in the index cards include merchant mariners and sailors; bakeries and bakers; construction contractors and the building trades; dairy processing and dairy workers; distilleries and breweries; food producers and retailers; meatpacking companies and butchers; metal forge shops, steel mills, and iron and steel workers; coal mining, miners, and dealers in the coal trade; iron ore miners; quarry workers; petroleum refineries; natural gas works; lumberjacks, saw mill workers, and other workers in the lumber trade; radio and television broadcasting stations, cable television companies, and technicians; trucking firms and truck drivers; warehouses; furniture makers and upholsterers; sporting goods manufacturers and retailers; papermakers; public schools and school teachers' unions; government employees at the municipal, state, and federal levels of government; and nurses and other employees of nursing homes, hospitals, and other medical care establishments.
Some of the labor unions more commonly recorded on the cards included the Ohio Nurses Association; the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union; the Allied Industrial Workers; the Service Employees International Union; the United Auto Workers; the International Association of Machinists; the Hotel & Restaurant Employees and Bartenders International Union; the Metal Polishers Union; the Sheet Metal Workers' International Association; the Pattern Makers' League of North America; the International Brotherhood of Teamsters; the Aluminum, Brick and Clay Workers International Union; the International Molders and Allied Workers Union; the Oil, Chemical, and Atomic Workers International Union; the United Rubber Workers of America; the United Steelworkers of America; the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers; the Bakery and Confectionary Workers' International Union of America; the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen; the United Paperworkers; the International Typographical Union; the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers; the American Flint Glass Workers' Union; the United Glass and Ceramic Workers of North America; the United Furniture Workers of America; the Seafarers' International Union of North America, Great Lakes District; the National Maritime Union of America; the Amalgamated Transit Union; the National Union of Hospital and Health Care Employees; the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees; the National Federation of Federal Employees; and the American Federation of Government Employees.
A few of the companies and government employers involved in labor-management disputes include the Ford Motor Company, the Chrysler Corporation, the Chevrolet Motor Division of General Motors; Sears, Roebuck and Company; the American Broadcasting Company; Storer Broadcasting Company; Republic Steel; the Social Security Administration; Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company; and B. F. Goodrich Company.
Most of the disputes appear to have occurred in small cities or towns, not in regional urban centers.
