United Mine Workers of America, Department of Contract Services records

The United Mine Workers of America (UMW) formed in 1890. The overriding concerns of the organization were fair wages and safety for miners. Towards the former goal, fair wages, the UMW negotiated contacts with mining company operators, producers, and associations. These agreements were made on a regional basis in the union’s first decades and then, from the mid-1920s, nationally.

The history of contract maintenance within the internal organization of the UMW prior to 1960 is unclear. Certainly throughout the history of the UMW the union president held the central position in contract negotiations and the secretary-treasurer was charged with maintaining financial records. Possibly William A. Boyle was involved in collecting contracts in his capacity as assistant to UMW president John L. Lewis from 1948 to 1960.

In 1960, after Boyle was elected vice-president of the UMW, Joseph T. Kennedy received a mandate to take charge of UMW contracts. Having just returned to the UMW from a leave of absence for a government appointment, Kennedy rejoined the union as assistant to UMW President Thomas Kennedy (no relation). His duties were to maintain the record of signatories to the National Bituminous Coal Wage Agreement and to notify the UMW Welfare and Retirement Fund of such signatories. Kennedy received all copies of report forms, contracts, correspondence, and other related materials pertaining to the names of companies signing the bituminous coal agreement or to changes in the status of those companies. Anthracite coal wage agreements were maintained separately.

On April 1, 1963, following the election of Boyle as UMW president, Boyle appointed Joseph T. Kennedy as director of the Contract Department. (Whether there was a formal Contract Department prior to that date is unknown.) Kennedy died in 1966, and John McGuire became its director. Under McGuire, the Contract Department maintained the records of completed contracts, work stoppages, grievances, and arbitration. When necessary, the field director of the department traveled to the coalfields to help to prepare and to argue cases.

Prior to mid-1963, an unknown portion of the UMW company card files (see above, Series 3) was generated by the UMW Safety Division rather than by the Contract Department, presumably to record compliance or noncompliance with health and safety rules at American mines. These index cards were then copied, and the copies filed in the Contract Department. In a memo of June 11, 1963, from UMW president William A. Boyle to Charles Ferguson, director of the Safety Division, Boyle discontinued this redundancy for the sake of time-saving and efficiency. Thereafter the Contract Department maintained the sole card file, to which members of the Safety Division would refer as needed. Because it is impossible to distinguish, retrospectively, which runs of cards might have come directly from the Safety Division, all of these index cards have been archived within the Department of Contract Services Records.

Kennedy and McGuire gave the name of their office as Contract Department on their typescript correspondence, but other sources called it the Contract Division. In 1978 it was renamed the Department of Contract Administration, with Robert Benedict as director. Around 1984 it became the Office of Contract Information. By 1990 Steve Lindner was the director. In 1992 it became the Department of Contract Services. In 1995 August “Bo” Martos succeeded Lindner. Throughout these years, despite changes in the official name, numerous documents continued to refer to this entity as the Contract Department.