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Washington State Federation of Labor records, approximately 1881-1967

Overview of the Collection

Creator
Washington State Federation of Labor
Title
Washington State Federation of Labor records
Dates
approximately 1881-1967 (inclusive)
Quantity
45.44 cubic feet (including 2 microfilm reels, 1 package and 1 vertical file)
Collection Number
0301
Summary
Records of the Washington State Federation of Labor of the American Federation of Labor (AFL), prior to their merger with the Washington State Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) Council, becoming the Washington State Labor Council, in 1957.
Repository
University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections
Special Collections
University of Washington Libraries
Box 352900
Seattle, WA
98195-2900
Telephone: 2065431929
Fax: 2065431931
speccoll@uw.edu
Access Restrictions

Collection is open for research.

Some material stored offsite; advance notice required for use.

Request at UW

Languages
English
Sponsor
Full processing supported by the Labor Archives Fund and the Labor Archives of Washington State Budget
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Historical Note

In 1893 unions throughout the state sent delegates to the first Washington Labor Congress. In 1902 the Labor Congress decided to form a permanent executive board, change the organization’s name to the Washington State Federation of Labor (WSFL), and affiliate with the American Federation of Labor (AFL). Thereafter, only AFL unions could join the WSFL. The primary purpose of the organization, however, remained the same: to lobby the state legislature for labor-endorsed measures. The WSFL also supported candidates and ballot measures and occasionally aided local unions during strikes or organizing drives, but lobbying was almost always the first priority. The WSFL was thus the political arm of the largest segment of the labor movement in Washington.

In the early part of the twentieth century, the WSFL was an important part of the progressive coalition in Washington. The WSFL allied with the Grange, the Federation of Women’s Clubs, and other groups to pass a whole host of measures such as workers’ compensation, the initiative and referendum, and minimum wage laws for women and children. The WSFL was wracked with internal conflicts in the late 1910s and the 1920s over the US entry into the First World War, the desirability of the industrial union type of organization, and the wisdom of launching a third political party. President William Short (1918-1926) and his moderate craft union allies won most of these disputes. Against the wishes of Short and the AFL hierarchy, the WSFL did, however, vote to help launch the Washington Farmer-Labor Party (FLP) in 1920. The FLP temporarily displaced the Democrats as the primary opposition party in the state but failed to reduce the Republican domination of state politics. In 1922 Short and his allies defeated the third partyists and pulled the WSFL out of the FLP. The WSFL then adopted a non-partisan stance, endorsing both Democratic and Republican candidates. But, other than an increase in workers’ compensation benefits in 1923, the Federation won few legislative victories in the conservative 1920s.

The swelling of union membership and the discrediting of conservative leadership during the Great Depression brought the Federation its greatest legislative influence. WSFL President James Taylor (1928-1945) and his staff were instrumental in passing anti-labor injunction bills, legislation creating unemployment insurance, and minimum wage and maximum hour laws in this period. The defection of Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) unions, the revival of the Republican Party, and the transfer of many facets of governmental policymaking from the state to the federal level reduced the Federation’s power in the late 1930s. Although the WSFL remained influential in state politics, major legislative victories came less often. The Federation won a retirement system for public employees in 1939 and prevailing union wages for all state public works projects in 1945. In addition, President Evan (Ed) Weston (1945-1957) painstakingly crafted numerous incremental expansions of the eligibility criteria and benefit levels of the workers’ compensation and unemployment insurance programs during the 1940s and 1950s. In 1957, seeking to expand labor’s political power, the Federation set aside its squabbles with rival unions and put itself out of business: the WSFL merged with the Washington State CIO Council to create the Washington State Labor Council.

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Content Description

Financial records, correspondence, minutes, and other papers of the Federation prior to the 1957 merger with the Congress of Industrial Organizations. Materials concern such topics as statewide programs for constituent unions, right to work laws, lobbying, and cooperation with the American Federation of Labor (AFL). The largest portion of this accession is correspondence from 1918 to 1957.

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Other Descriptive Information

Forms part of the Labor Archives of Washington.

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Use of the Collection

Preferred Citation

Labor Archives of Washington, University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections, Washington State Federation of Labor records, 0301-[Accession #], [box number], [folder number]

Alternative Forms Available

Initiative 130 scrapbooks available on microfilm.

Restrictions on Use

Creator's literary rights not transferred to the University of Washington Libraries.

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Administrative Information

Arrangement

Organized into 2 accessions.

  • Accession No. 0301-001, Washington State Federation of Labor records, approximately 1881-1962
  • Accession No. 0301-002, Washington State Federation of Labor records, approximately 1936-1967

Processing Note

Archives intern Abbey Maynard updated the arrangement in EAD for accession number 0301-001 using the existing finding aid as a guide and added an arrangement note. Abbey also made EAD updates for date ranges and folder titles. Abbey completed this work in November 2020 as a part of the Northwest Archivist's Archivist in Residency.

Related Materials

Additional Washington Federation of Labor (WSFL) records are interspersed throughout the Washington State Labor Council collection, accessions 0450 through 0450-12. A few items of WSFL ephemera, such as printed copies of the WSFL’s constitutions and its election results, are kept in accession0 450-2. A small amount of WSFL records from 1939 to 1957 are included in the correspondence, legislation, and subject series of accession 0450-3. A few of WSFL President Ed Weston’s papers also appear in the presidential papers subgroup of accession 0450-3. The materials in accession 0450-3 are not organized in the same way as those in accession 0301. Letters are generally filed by subject, not correspondent. Many WSFL legislative files from 1946 to 1957 are contained in accession 0450-6. Accession 0450-8 holds legislative files from 1937 to 1948 (bulk 1946-48). The material in accessions 0450-6 and 0450-8 is in much the same order as it was kept by WSFL officials--grouped together by the title of the bill and roughly in chronological order. For more information on the organization of these materials, see the guide to the Washington State Labor Council collection. The Washington State Labor Council subgroup of the Evan M. Weston papers (accession 1965) also contains a small quantity of WSFL records. While many of the Weston papers simply duplicate material in the WSFL collection, the papers do contain additional information about Weston’s campaigns for the presidency of the WSFL and about his lobbying activities.

The repository also holds a complete series of the Proceedings of the Annual Convention of the Washington State Federation of Labor from 1905 to 1957. The Proceedings are an invaluable source of information on the legislative goals and internal politics of the Federation. Microforms and Newspapers has a fragmentary run of the Washington State Labor News, the WSFL’s official journal, from 1924 to 1968. The best work on the early history of the Federation is Jonathan Dembo, Unions and Politics in Washington State, 1885-1935 (New York: Garland Publishing, 1983). Reference and Research Services has a copy of Jonathan Dembo, "An Historical Bibliography of Washington State Labor and Laboring Classes" (unpublished, 1978), which, although it is dated, lists many sources which deal with the WSFL’s history. There are essentially no books that cover the post-1940 history of the Federation. The Pacific Northwest Regional Newspaper and Periodical Index in the repository, however, contains a partial listing of newspaper articles on the WSFL’s activities in this period.

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Detailed Description of the Collection

 


2007 (Last modified: 12/8/2020)

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