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This collection documents the day-to-day activities of the Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA) from 1918 to the present. There is no documentation of the organization's initial years of existence, but significant material about administration, meetings, membership, agreements, publications, and organizational history.

The Public Employees Federation (PEF) was founded in 1979 to represent members of the Professional, Scientific, and Technical (PS&T) bargaining unit of New York State. PS&T employees had formerly been represented by CSEA, the state's largest public employee union. PEF founders believed that the concerns of the PS&T unit were not adequately represented by CSEA, the majority of whose members were non-professional state employees. PEF's stated mission is to "provide the leadership necessary for PEF members to achieve employment security, higher wages, better working conditions, and improved retirement benefits." Materials in this collection document PEF activities at both the state and division level. There is extensive coverage of executive board activities from 1978 through mid-2000, annual conventions, committee meetings, and contract negotiations. Also included are files for PEF Division 169, PEF's Environmental Conservation Division. These include correspondence, agendas and minutes for labor/management meetings, material on committees, and administrative files. This collection also documents the activities of reform groups and political parties within PEF (most notably, the Statewide Coalition for a Democratic Union) and PEF's relationships with its national affiliates, the Service Employees International Union and the American Federation of Teachers. Particularly strong is the collection of bulletin board postings, which includes almost everything posted on Division 169 PEF bulletin boards from 1979 through 2000. There are also official PEF publications, including a near-complete run of PEF's official monthly newsletter to members, The Communicator.