Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Employees Union Local 5 and Stern Brothers Arbitration Transcript, 1948
Collection Number: 5126

The United Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Employees had its beginnings as an aggressive union which evolved out of the venerable but conservative Retail Clerks International Association and the Congress of Industrial Organizations' Department Store Organizing Committee in the 1930s.

In the period 1937-1940, the union, then known as the United Retail Employees of America, made major gains in New York City which included not only organizing the large department stores there, but also establishing a forty hour week for retail clerks in the city. A right-left struggle over the leadership of the union was dormant during World War II, only to arise with new violence in 1948. This internecine rivalry resulted in a decline in the union, to the benefit of its old rival, the Retail Clerks International Association. In 1954, the union's name changed to the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union.

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Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Employees Union Local 5 and Stern Brothers Arbitration Transcript #5126. Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation and Archives, Cornell University Library.

Related Collections: /3012: Alice Cook Papers /3052: John W. McConnell Papers /4212: Kheel Center Current Documents Correspondence 5012: Saul Wallen Papers 5129: Maxwell Copelof Arbitration Briefs, Exhibits, Transcripts and Decisions 5131: Sidney A. Wolff Arbitration Files 5206-D: Local 1199 Drug Division Records 5206-G: Local 1199 Guild Division Records 5206-PR: Local 1199 President Leon Davis Records 5206-S: Local 1199 Executive Secretary Moe Foner Records 5206-X: Local 1199 Clippings and News Releases 5216: Theresa Wolfson Papers 5257 AV: Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Employees Union Audio-Visual Materials 5275: AFL-CIO Internal Disputes Plan Decisions of the Impartial Umpire 5305: Benjamin H. Wolf Papers 5311: NWLB Region II Office Files and Cases 5473: Ralph D. Winstead Papers 5493: Elmer E. Hilpert Arbitration Papers 5505: Samuel Wolchok Correspondence and Minutes 5510: Local 1199 Records 5525: Local 1199 Additional Files 5538: James C. Hill Arbitration Files 5539: Benjamin H. Wolf Additional Arbitration Files 5576: S. Stanley Alderfer Arbitration Files 5583/1: Archives Organization File (AOF) Part 1 5588: David L. Cole Papers 5619/004: ACTWU President Jacob Sheinkman Files 5651: Local 1199 Additional Records 5663 mf: Collective Bargaining Agreements on Microfilm 5680 OH: Local 1199 Oral History Project 5697: James A. Gross Arbitration Files 5724 mf: Cigar Makers International Union Records on Microfilm 5733: Peter Seitz Arbitration Files 5780/002: ILGWU David Dubinsky Correspondence 5780/203: ILGWU Jay Mazur Papers 5803: Benjamin Wolf Additional Arbitration Files