Joint Western Area Committee records
Scope and Contents
The collection contains agendas, minutes, and proceedings from the Joint Western Area Committee (JWAC) of the Western Conference of Teamsters Freight Division for the period from 1965 until 2004. The JWAC records include an almost complete run of agendas and minutes of quarter-annually JWAC meetings from 1965-1996. The proceedings include summaries of cases discussed at the committee level, and many verbatim transcripts of committee hearings. JWAC committees and sub-committees (including the Main Committee, Change of Operations Committee, Over-The-Road Committee, Local Operations Committee, Joint Council # 7 Disputes, Break Bulk Committee, Committee for Discharges, Terminations & Suspensions/Warning Letters, California Trucking Association Committee) held hearings in grievance cases that could not be resolved at the local level. The committees evolved and varied over the time period documented in this collection. The hearings cover a wide range of grievances reflecting work conditions in the trucking business, for example disputes related to change of operations, violations of seniority privileges, grievances regarding payment, sick-leave, holidays, among many other issues. While all committee hearings are documented in the summaries that are included in the agendas and minutes of the meetings, not all committee hearings are transcribed in full. The existing transcripts are not arranged in the same consecutive numerical order as the summaries of the committee hearings for a particular meeting (for example, the transcript for the proceedings of a committee discussing case number 8-84-2232 may be found prior to the transcript of the case number 8-84-2227). Both transcripts, however, can be found in the collection of records from the JWAC meeting in August of 1984. Therefore, when searching for corresponding transcripts of committee hearings listed in the summaries, researchers should always consult the entire collection of transcripts of hearings held by a particular committee during a meeting. Proceedings for August and November 1969 are missing from the collection and there are no records for the period from 1996 to 2003.
Dates
- 1965-2004
Conditions Governing Access
This collection contains grievance records that contain the names of parties, grievants, and/or witnesses and using these will require the following procedure. All researchers using this collection will be asked to sign the User Statement Regulating Access document stating that he/she will not use the names of the parties, grievant or witnesses from the file in any publication, lecture or other venue.
Conditions Governing Use
Some material may be copyrighted or restricted. It is the patron's obligation to determine and satisfy copyright or other case restrictions when publishing or otherwise distributing materials found in the collections.
Historical Note
The Joint Western Area Committee (JWAC) was one of four area conferences of the Teamsters, and served as a semi-autonomous intermediary organization between the local units of the IBT, and the national organization. The first Western conference of Teamsters was organized in 1937 under the leadership of Dave Beck, and united members from eleven Western states, including British Columbia. However, the conferences were not integrated into the administrative structure of the union until 1947. According to Sam Romer’s study of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (NY and London: John Wiley & Sons, 1962), the area conferences were self-contained, smaller replicas of the international union, and were comprised of all locals within its geographic boundaries. “The rise of the area conference marks the end of the local union in collective bargaining,” Romer wrote (84). The area conferences were equally financed by the international union, and by affiliated locals. In 1994, Teamsters president Ron Carey dismantled the area conferences, including JWAC, as part of a larger re-organization of the union. The JWAC records reflect the broad responsibilities of the Western area conference, and document the complex process of enforcing the National Master Freight Agreement at the regional level. The summaries and transcripts of committee hearings highlight grievances and disputes in the freight business at the regional level, and also offer insights into the impact of de-regulation of the freight industry in the 1970s on individual workers.
Extent
65.75 Linear Feet (132 document boxes)
Language of Materials
English
Abstract
The Joint Western Area Committee (JWAC) was one of four area conferences of the Teamsters, and served as a semi-autonomous intermediary organization between the local units of the IBT, and the national organization. The collection contains agendas, minutes, and proceedings from the Joint Western Area Committee (JWAC) of the Western Conference of Teamsters Freight Division for the period from 1965 until 2004.
Arrangement
Arranged chronologically.
Physical Location
Materials may be stored off-site, and may require additional retrieval time. Please contact the Special Collections Research Center for more information.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Gift of IBT Local 70, Oakland, CA and the Labor Archives Research Center, San Francisco, 2009 (2011.042)
- International Brotherhood of Teamsters
- Trucking Subject Source: Library of Congress Subject Headings
- Trucking -- Law and Legislation Subject Source: Library of Congress Subject Headings
- Trucking -- United States Subject Source: Library of Congress Subject Headings
- West (U.S.) Subject Source: Library of Congress Subject Headings
- Western Conference of Teamsters
- Title
- Guide to the Joint Western Area Committee Records, 1965-2004
- Status
- Completed
- Author
- Special Collections Research Center, The George Washington University
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
- Language of description note
- Finding aid written in English
Repository Details
Part of the Special Collections Research Center, The George Washington University Repository
