Dr. Jacob Seidenberg (1914-1996) was a government official who specialized in labor arbitration and non-discrimination contracts, and wrote extensively on labor law and negotiations. He graduated from Temple University in 1937 and received a law degree from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1941. During the 1940s he was an attorney with the U.S. War Department, the National War Labor Board and the National Wage Stabilization Board. In 1948 he went to graduate school at Cornell University, from which he earned his Ph.D. in industrial and labor relations in 1951. In 1951 he joined the staff of the President's Committee on Government Contract Compliance. The Committee was abolished by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in August 1953 by Executive Order 10479 and was succeeded by the President's Committee on Government Contracts. Seidenberg was appointed Executive Director of the new committee and served until January 1960 when he resigned to become a full-time labor arbitrator. The Committee was responsible for enforcing non-discrimination clauses in government contracts, worked with private businesses to help them overcome job discrimination, and developed educational programs against ethnic and racial discrimination. The chairman was Vice President Richard Nixon, and the vice chairman was Secretary of Labor James P. Mitchell. In later years Seidenberg served on a number of boards of inquiry involving labor disputes. From 1970 to 1975 he was chairman of the Federal Services Impasses Panel which settled deadlocks in federal labor negotiations.
Chiefly files of cases in the railroad industry, brought before Boards on which Seidenberg served from 1960-1974. The major unions represented in these files are United Transportation Union; Brotherhood of Railway, Airline, and Steamship Clerks; Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen; Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen; Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen; and Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers. The major railroads represented are Penn Central Transportation Company; Southern Pacific Company; Erie-Lackawanna Railroad Company; Long Island Railroad Company; Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway Company; Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway Company; Norfolk and Western Railway Company; and Southern Buffalo Railway Company. Also, Union Pacific Railway Company; Central Georgia Railroad Company; Illinois Central Gulf Railroad Company; Western Maryland Railway Company; St. Louis South Western Railway Lines; and Monongahela Railway Company.
The major issues involved include violation of work assignment rules, dismissal, seniority, discipline, time claims, mileage claims, and payment claims, holiday pay, runaround, wage rates, deadheading, overtime, suspension, compensation, reinstatement, and others. Additionally, there are numerous cases arbitrated by Seidenberg involving the following unions: National Union of Hospital and Health Care Employees; International Brotherhood of Teamsters; United Automobile, Aircraft and Agricultural Implement Workers of America; Office and Professional Employees International Union; American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME); Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen of North America; United Brotherhood of Carpenters District Council; United Steelworkers of America; and International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers.
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Jacob Seidenberg Additional Arbitration Case Files #5217. Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation and Archives, Cornell University Library.
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