Rise of the labor movement in Los Angeles [antikvár]

FOREWORDWith this volume, Rise of the Labor Movement in Los Angeles, the Institute of Industrial Relations, Southern Division, has expanded its research program to include a unique and important approach to labor-management relations. We are here presenting a history of the origin and early development of trade-unions in the southern California com-munity. The significance of such historical research is succinctly pointed out by Provost Gordon S. Watkins, of the University of California at Riverside, in his introduction.A primary objective of the Institute, as established on former Gov-ernor Earl Warren's recommendation, is to promote the more effective use of the human and economie resources of the community by bringing about a better understanding of the problems in the relationships be-tween labor and management. A basic requirement for such understanding is a knowledge of how present institutions emerged and grew. One of these institutions, about which little has been recorded until the publication of this volume, is the organized labor movement.This book is the beginning of a study which has no real conclusion. Although it is hoped that this first volume will be followed by one or several others which will record the history of labor in Los Angeles to the present day, scenes are unfolding and unknown actors are appearing with every new year. It will be noted that many organizationsnews-papers, labor unions, and employers' associationswhich are part of this history, are still in existence. Their names have remained the same, but their attitudes may have changed, just as the character of the labor movement as a whole has changed in the intervening years.The guiding spirit for this study was Provost Watkins. The John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation initiated the investigation and furnished the financial support for the undertaking. The Institute is deeply grateful to Dr. Watkins and the Haynes Foundation for making many research materials available and for the grant which made it possible to transfer Dr. Stimson and Miss Eleanor Gold to the Institute staff for completion of this work. Dr. Stimson's laborious unearthing of primary sources, her patient documentation, and her skillful weaving of these materials into an integrated and illuminating story represent a masterful exercise in historical research.Until this publication, the principal source of information about organized labor in the state has been Professor Ira B. Cross's A History of the Labor Movement in California. That study was primarily con-cerned with developments in northern California. Students of industrialnviiii