Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union, Local 6 Records
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Historical/Biographical Note
Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union, Local 6 (now affiliated with the international union, UNITE/HERE) represents housekeeping staff, waiters, bartenders and other categories of service employees in hotel, private clubs and restaurants in the New York City area. The local grew substantially as a result of a major organizing drive in the mid-1930s, under Local president Michael J. Obermeier, and absorbed a number of smaller locals of hotel employees over the years. Significant gains came in 1938, with the signing of the first city-wide contract for hotel employees in many crafts and unions; the contract was negotiated by the newly formed umbrella group of hotel unions, the New York City Hotel Trades Council, headed by Jay Rubin. The HTC has continued to negotiate with the united employers (organized in the New York Hotel Association) on behalf of many categories of hotel employees. The Local is ethnically diverse, and has always included a high proportion of Latino workers.
Arrangement
Folders are arranged alphabetically.
The files are organized into nine series:
Missing Title
- I: Minutes
- II: General Files
- III: Banquet Department
- IV: Hotels
- V: Club Department
- VI: Restaurant Division
- VII: Editor's Files
- VIII: Membership Records
- IX: Addendum, General Files
Scope and Content Note
The collection contains minutes, general subject files, and detailed records of each of the Local's divisions and departments (most of them arranged alphabetically by name of hotel, restaurant or club). The division/department records contain considerable information on organizing, membership at each location, grievances, and working life in general in New York's hotels, restaurants and private clubs. Also included are files of the editor of the Local's newspaper and membership applications (see series description below).
Series VIII: Membership Records, 1938-1961; 1975, contains applications filled out by hotel and club workers for membership in Local 6, and some dues records for club employees (1975). The membership applications record various categories of information, including place of birth; citizenship status; job, hotel or club worked at; length of employment, and place of residence. The applications were kept in binders organized chronologically by year (with some overlap between binders) and are not arranged alphabetically within years. Individual applications appear to be filed under the year of first applying, with additional date stamps added to the form in cases where the member reapplied after a break in employment. Individual item numbers (D series, H series, etc.) refer to an item on the form identified as "Ledger Page"; this may represent a cross-referencing system. The "Ledger Page" references have sometimes been crossed out and altered over time.
Box 51: The single box of records from 1975 consists of lists of members and their dues payments, grouped alphabetically by club name. Only a partial alphabet for this set (letters R through Y) was found in the collection. Note: this box contains restricted information and is available by special arrangement with archives staff only.
Subjects
Organizations
People
Donors
Conditions Governing Access
Materials are open without restrictions. Series VIII: Membership records were closed for thirty-five years after their creation and are now available.
Conditions Governing Use
Copyright (or related rights to publicity and privacy) for most materials in this collection, created by the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union, Local 6, was not transferred to New York University. Permission to use materials must be secured from the copyright holder.
Any rights for non-print materials (including copyright and related rights to publicity and privacy) held by the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union, Local 6, were transferred to New York University in 1997 by Peter Ward. Permission to publish or reproduce non-print materials in this collection must be secured from Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Archives. Please contact tamiment.wagner@nyu.edu, (212) 998-2630.
Preferred Citation
Published citations should take the following form:
Identification of item, date; Collection name; Collection number; box number; folder number; Tamiment Library/Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, New York University.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
The collection was given on deposit to the Tamiment Library/Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives by the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union, Local 6 in 1997, under an agreement with Peter Ward, President of the Council. The accession number associated with this collection is 1950.263.
In 2001, HERE, Local 6 donated two mural panels, called the "Four Freedoms" by Hugo Gellert.
