Guide to the Graphic Arts Union, Local 199 Records

History of Graphic Arts Union, Local 199

The Graphic Arts Union, Local 199 was formed in Dayton, Ohio, and was created out of the labor organization the International Brotherhood of Bookbinders, also known as the Dayton Bookbinders Union. The union operated under that name until the late 1970s, when they switched to become the Graphic Arts Union (GAU). The GAU was a local of the Graphic Arts International Union (GAIU). The first local member joined in 1936. The earliest members are recorded having worked for the publishing company, McCalls. The union would go on to serve employees from the Dayton Press, Rike Paper Products, and other well-known Dayton companies.

Scope and Content

Subgroup I of Local 199 records contains material which deals with the internal business of the Local. There are four bound volumes of records of dues paid and lists of men members for 1941 and 1949, and lists of women members for 1942 and 1949. The minutes, which are on microfilm, are for the regular monthly meetings and the Executive Board and cover the years 1949 to 1979. There are also a few copies of minutes in the file folders (see the box and folder listing). The certificates of union officers in Series 3, Membership and Elections, give titles and names of all officers of the union from 1954-1959. This series also includes election results for the years 1940, 1944, 1946-1956, 1958, 1960, 1962, 1965, and 1968.

Series 4, Financial Records, includes very thorough financial records of the local monthly, quarterly, and annual reports for the years 1951-1965. Series 5 gives details of members' grievances concerning their working conditions. There is much useful material in the Negotiations files, which contain extensive records of meetings between companies and the union, company proposals, and union counter-proposals for the 1960s and 1970s. In the series dealing with negotiations with McCalls, there is a very interesting file on company policy concerning pregnant workers. In the 1940s pregnant women would receive no leave of absence. They would have to terminate their employment and lose all their benefits. If they wished to return after their babies were born, it would be as new employees. This policy was changed in the 1950s.

The correspondence files contain petitions, information about negotiations and details of pay scales. There is an interesting letter in the file of correspondence with the Giele end Pflaum Printing Company, dated 1945, which encloses with it a complaint about the Local not using union labels on their own printed circulars. In the file of correspondence with McCalls, there is an undated pamphlet which gives facts and figures about the company, such as the sort of work which was done by the different departments, and a list of the periodicals which were printed by them. There is also a letter, dated 1947, which gives information about benefits for World War II veterans returning to employment with the company. Some of the correspondence files with various companies, such as Standard Register, include ballots which show that the union did not receive a sufficient number of votes from employees to become the bargaining representative for the company.

In the correspondence with the U.S. Government National Labor Relations Board, there are copies of annual registration forms from 1949-1957 which give information to the Department of Labor about the Local's officers and the compensation they received. There are affidavits for the years 1947-1949, in which union officers swore that they were not members of the Communist party. There is also a file on veterans of the Second World War, which includes a handbook, some pamphlets, and a few letters dealing with their rights concerning re-employment. One letter from the War Relocation Authority, dated August 28, 1944, deals with the re-settlement of some Japanese Americans in Dayton.

In the general correspondence files, there is a file on Charles A. Schill. Schill was the Secretary-Treasurer of Local 199 for many years. He was convicted and jailed for embezzling over $18,000 of union funds during the period from 1945 to 1951. Although Schill submitted his resignation to the union, it is evident from the files that for the next ten years he attempted to get re-instatement. This was constantly denied him. The union felt that Schill had done tremendous damage, not only to the local, but to the rank and file of all labor people and would not consider re-instatement unless he made a full restitution of all the money he had taken.

Also in the correspondence files, there are plans and blue prints for a proposed new union building which has not been built, correspondence with members, past officers, and other locals. One file contains correspondence with the Dayton Union Label Council and information about where to buy union-made merchandise and about the necessity for using union labels on that merchandise.

Subgroup II contains records of other organizations with which Local 199 had dealings. There is such material as minutes of meetings, financial records, and general correspondence. The United Organized Labor of Montgomery County series includes a file on the controversial Right to Work Bill of 1958 with a number of newspaper clippings, pamphlets, and correspondence urging members to vote against the Bill.

In the records of the International Brotherhood of Bookbinders, there is a file containing material relating to the Labor Managing Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959 which includes the program of a Briefing Conference held in 1964 to discuss some of the problems in interpretation, administration, and enforcement of the Act. The collection also contains copies of the International Brotherhood of Bookbinders' publication, The International Bookbinder, from January 1952 to December 1971.

Statement of Arrangement

Restrictions on Use

Copyright restrictions may apply. Unpublished manuscripts are protected by copyright. Permission to publish, quote or reproduce must be secured from the repository and the copyright holder.

Restrictions on Access

There are no restrictions on accessing materials in this collection.

Microfilm in the collection is located in the reading room microfilm cabinets.

Subject Terms

The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.

Subjects:

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Technical Requirements

Minutes on microfilm can be viewed on the reading room microfilm reader/scanner.

Preferred Citation

[Description of item, Date, Box #, Folder #], MS-108, Graphic Arts Union, Local 199, Special Collections and Archives, University Libraries, Wright State University, Dayton, Ohio.

Acquisition Information

The records of the Graphic Arts Union, Local 199, were accessioned into the Wright State University Archives and Special Collections in July 1980 as part of the Ohio Labor History Project, accession number 80-14.

Processing Information

Processed by Gillian Marsham, January 1981.

Other Finding Aid

The finding aid is available on the Special Collections & Archives, Wright State University Libraries web site at
https://wright.libraryhost.com/repositories/2/resources/784.