This collection consists of office records, subject files, and microfilmed records generated by I. W. Abel (1952-1965) and Walter J. Burke (1965-1977) during their successive tenures as United Steelworkers of America (USWA) Secretary-Treasurer, and by Thomas Murray, Assistant to the Secretary-Treasurer. It includes correspondence, contract listings, employee records, deeds information, financial records, draft and final merger agreements, meeting agendas and minutes, convention and election materials, union reports, newspaper clippings, and newsletters. The records address such topics as contact with public service organizations and other labor unions, AFL-CIO policies and programs, the Wage Policy Board, the development of incentive coverage for production and maintenance workers in the basic steel industry, union negotiating procedures, election endorsements, membership opinion, staff expenses, health and insurance benefits, arbitration awards, company and union policy statements, and mergers between the USWA and the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers (IUMMSW; 1967) and the Allied and Technical Workers (District 50; 1972). There are texts of speeches given by Burke during his tenure as Secretary-Treasurer; a table of contents in the front of each yearly binder provides the date, title, and topic of each speech. The collection also includes two financial secretary cash books for Local 3657, and 75 union badges and buttons. In addition to the paper records, the Documents and Effects Department series includes copies of local union correspondence, organizers' reports, labor organization annual reports, and records of the IUMMSW. A substantial portion of the microfilmed local union correspondence (1937-1970) dates from the era of the Steel Workers Organizing Committee (SWOC), prior to the formation of the USWA. These documents are organized numerically by union, not chronologically, and there are gaps in the coverage: local unions 1242-1258, 1608-1665, 2040-2088, 2173-2220, 2745-2818, 3410-3485, 4045-4128, and 5511-6364. A substantial portion of the microfilmed organizer's reports (1933-1967 ) also dates from the SWOC era, and several reports come from the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel and Tin Workers (AAISTW), whose unions were called lodges rather than locals. The organizational reports extend in an incomplete run from AAISTW Lodge 2 through USWA Local 1635. Microfilms of labor organization annual reports (LM-2 forms) are for the calendar year 1971, from local unions within District 27, District 29, and District 30. Microfilms of IUMMSW records consist of images of bargaining agreements, as well as images from two boxes of archival documents concerning USWA raids on the IUMMSW and the subsequent merger of the two unions.
