January 14, 2011 

Dubofsky, pp. 56-82

                                                                    Some terms:                                                                        

“Island communities”

 voluntarism

 republicanism

 producerism

 
RE the National Labor Union (William Sylvis and Ira Steward), compare these two statements. 1): Dubofsky, page 63:  “The working-class movement that emerged. . . [in the 1860s and early 1870s] offered real promise for substantial change in the American social structure. . . neither workers nor their union leaders. . . accepted the triumph of industrial capitalism as inevitable. . . alternatives seemed possible. . . .”  And 2): George Scialabba: Re the rise of industrial capitalism, “isn’t it simply the way things must be. . . ? [In view of] the sheer, unstoppable momentum of advancing technology. . .what other form of life is possible. . . is there any alternative?”

                                                      Zieger on the Knights of Labor:

 The KOL was less a coherent and agenda-driven labor organization than the  repository of the hopes, aspirations, and grievances of large numbers of American workers in the 1880s.  The rapid pace and uneven performance of industrial capitalism created a widely shared sense of grievance and resentment among thousands of  workers.  The high-handed and arbitrary ways in which employers increasingly tried  to dilute long-standing work practices and to step up the pace of work triggered angry response.  During this deflationary period, wage reductions were frequent.  And underlying discontent with specific workplace issues lay smoldering hostility toward the way in which the emerging industrial regime, with its increasingly hierarchical methods of management and its growing disparities of wealth and poverty, seemed to vitiate America’s promise of justice and equality.

            The Knights of Labor, sometimes fortuitously, tapped into this volatile mixture of grievances, resentments, and mistrust.  Though its leadership might oppose strikes as a method of protest, thousands of men and women, viewing the KOL as a vehicle for their protest, did not hesitate to violate this theoretical injunction. The Knights’s vision of an egalitarian producer republic that could somehow redirect the headlong rush to corporate capitalism, with all its pathologies and advantages,  looked backward to an allegedly simpler and more humane time.  At the same time, in its vision of uniting all workers regardless of craft or gender or race and of adapting republican institutions and civic activism to new conditions the KOL provided a vision  of equaity and social justice that remains vital today.

                                              Re the trade unions, note the following:

“rationalistic in the Weberian sense” (69) Meaning what?

Central trade union principles discussed, p. 70

 Two versions of trade unionism evidenced by the Carpenters.  (71)

 business unionism; what we might call “social unionism”

 Craft unionism–closed shop.  (73)

 Yet here are the words of he AFL’s founding manifesto: “A struggle is going on. . . between the oppressors and the oppressed. . ., a struggle between the capitalist and the laborer, which. . . will work disastrous results to the toiling millions of they are not combined for mutual protection and benefit.”

 “The American environment was as unconducive to working-class politics as it was to trade unionism.” (76) How so?  And yet workers were very active politically through this period.

 Populism a farmer-worker protest movement.  But farmers and workers “failed to form a successful radical political coalition in the 1890s” (79)

 Role of socialism in 19^th century protest movements.

Racism and sexism.  After serving as Grand Master Workman of the Knights of Labor, Powerly was appointed US Immigration Commissioner and served in that capacity between 1898 and 1902.  Here are some of his choicer comments about the Chinese:

 He pledged to “check the advancing hordes and whores who seek our shores,” adding that “I am no bigot.”  According to the 1892 AFL convention, with the Chinese came “nothing but filth, vice, and disease.”

 

 ***
Quiz.  January 19, 2011

 Daniel Letwin, “Interracial Unionism, Gender, and ‘Social Equality’ in the Alabama Coal Fields, 1878-1908,” Journal of Southern History 61: 3 (August 1995).

 1.  According to Letwin, one key reason for the relative success of interracial unionism in the Alabama coal fields was that: a) most of the white miners were Union army veterans, imbued with the idealism of the Civil War fight against slavery; b) most of the black miners were convict laborers and hence posed no threat to white men’s jobs; c) the UMW’s insistence on social equality silenced racially motivated objections to interracial unionism; d) the lack of social interaction between black and white miners removed a potential source of friction.

 2.  Letwin argues that interracial unionism among late 19^th century Alabama miners: a) was merely one example of a broad pattern of the interracial labor activism that characterized the post-Civil War South; b) was the product of unique economic and demographic circumstances; c) has been exaggerated by wooly-headed historians eager to find a bi-racial “usable past”; d) enabled Alabama, alone among the southern states, to avoid the evils of disfranchisement and segregation that plagued its neighbors.

 3.  The United Mine Workers: a) carefully distinguished between support for black workers’ on-the-job rights, which it upheld, and “social equality,” which it disclaimed; b) excluded blacks from membership; c) vigorously fought against the disfranchisement of African Americans; d) refused to permit blacks to hold union offices.

 4.  Letwin’s overall point is that: a) opportunities for at least limited interracial labor activism were present even at times and in places otherwise notable for racial intolerance and subordination; b) employers’ racially egalitarian practices provided better opportunities for black workers than did labor activism; c) the role of women as active participants in labor struggles has been neglected by historians; d) black workers, North and South, faced unrelenting racial discrimination in the late 19^th century.

 5.  According to Letwin, one of the following factors played a key role in the shattering defeat suffered by the UMW in 1908.  Which is it?: a) inter-union struggle with the Knights of Labor, which divided union activists; b) black voters’ support for the Democrats in the November election, which undermined union solidarity; c) the support of state and local government for the coal operators; d) the union’s insistence on social equality.

***

January 21, 2011.  Reading: Zieger and Gall, AWAU, pp. 1-18

Here are some key terms appearing in today’s reading.  Which ones call for further discussion?

Scientific management

Welfare capitalism

Five-dollar day

skill

peonage

at will employment

Triangle Shirtwaist fire

Workmen’s compensation

New immigration

 melting pot

*****



Monday, January 24, 2011

The assignment for today is to consult the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire linked on the course syllabus.  I'm asking students to spend about 45 minutes at this site:  read some of the first-hand testimony; look at the photos and other graphics; read the introductory text.  I'm asking all students to come to class on Monday armed with a specific question, comment, or observation about this material.  The q-c-o should be relevant; substantial; and interogatovy in nature.  Ill ask students to share their q, c, or o with the class.  Have a good weekend.

Some facts and figures on industrial safety:

Each day, 14 American workers are killed on the job (e.g., 5,214 in 2008).  About 4.5 million are injured.

Scholar Beverly Gate says that c. 1890-1920, the figure was about 100 a day, or over 35,000 a year; over a million for the whole period.  Between 1870 and 1900, about 30,000 coal miners were killed in accidents, cave-ins, explosions.  In the steel mills, 700 died annually; between 1890 and 1914, railroad accidents killed another 25,000 workers.  Black lung, brown lung, industrial cancers, and other occupationally related diseases killed thousands annually.

In 1971, Congress passed the Occupational Safety and Health Act.  Critics have charged that underfunding and political influence have rendered it ineffectual.  Jim Hightower, a prominent social critic, says that "In the 40-year life of OSHA. . ., more than 360,000 workers were killed."

Some quick items from Wikipedia:

**The Hamlet chicken processing plant fire. . . took place in Hamlet, NC, at the Imperial Foods processing plant on September 3, 1991. . . .Twenty-five people were killed and 54 injured in the fire, as they were trapped behind locked doors.

**The Sago Mine diaster was a coal mine explosion on January 2, 2006, in the Sago Mine in West Virginia.  The blast and its aftermath trapped 13 miners, with only one miner surviving.  It was the worst mining disaster since the Jim Walter Resources Mine Disaster in Alabama on Sepgember 23, 2001, which killed 13.  The Sago disaster was the worst one in West Virginia since the 1968 Farmington Mine Disaster, which killed 78.

**The Upper Big Branch Mine disaster occurred on April 5, 2010.  Twenty-nine out of thirty-one miners at the site were killed.  The accident was the worst in the US since 1970, when 38 miners were killed at  Hyden, KY.

**Eleven workers were killed in the Deepwater Horizon (i.e., BP) oil rig explosion on April 20, 2010.

****

January 26, 2011  Zieger and Gall, AWAU, 18-32

 Again a list of terms with which all students of US labor history should be familiar:

 Company unions

 "Age of Industrial Violence"

 closed shop

 industrial unionism

 Ludlow

 American Federation of Labor

        structure

        ideology

        leadership

        accomplishments and problems

 "Yellow Dog" contracts

 Labor injunctions

 Industrial Workers of the World

 International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union

****

January 31, 2011

Quiz on Eric Arnesen, "'Like Banquo's Ghost, It Will Not Down':  The Race Question and the American Railroad Brotherhoods, 1880-1920," AHR 99: 5 (Dec. 1994):  1601-33.

If you can get the correct answers, explain why they are correct, and specify what is wrong with each of the incorrect alternatives, you will have mastered Eric Arnesen’s important article.

1.  According to Arnesen, railroad workers were:  a) among the most exploited and poorly paid of all industrial workers; b) had pride in their skills, experience, and community standing; c) largely new immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe; d) notable for their distaste for organizing into unions.

2.  One important difference between North and South insofar as railroad work was concerned was that:  a) in the South, blacks were barred entirely from railroad work; b) in the North, blacks led in the creation of unions; c) in the South, blacks were permitted certain jobs denied to black workers in the North, at least until the early 1900s; d) in the North, most railroad jobs were performed by new immigrants.

 3.  Arnesen writes insightfully about the ways in which race and ideology intersected in the thinking of white railroaders.  Which of the following statements best captures his argument:  a) White railroaders welcomed men of all races on an equal footing into their unions; b) White railroaders were notorious for their undemocratic views and so their hostility toward black workers is not surprising; c) White railroaders viewed black and immigrant workers as threats to their masculinity and their status as republican citizens; d) As socialists, white railroaders favored racial equality, though in practice they were guilty of job discrimination.

 4. Which of the following statements best captures the role of the federal government in the realm of racial aspects of railroad work:  a) since the railroads were privately operated, the federal government played no role in either fostering or resisting the practice of racial discrimination; b) though the federal government made concerted efforts to impose affirmative action on the railroads, blacks continued to encounter discrimination;  c) during World War I, the federal government forced the biracial railroad unions to accept segregation; d) during World War I, some federal agencies, albeit only briefly, sought to promote egalitarian racial labor policies.

 5.  With which of the following statements would Eric Arnesen likely agree:  a) while racial discrimination is always wrong, seeking to understand its dynamics provides insights into the world view of dominant, discriminatory groups; b) while racial discrimination is always wrong, it was (and remains) futile to try to change people’s minds through governmental action; c) since black workers showed little interest in railroad work, the racism and discrimination exhibited by railroad employers and white workers is of only antiquarian interest; d) nothing short of public ownership and operation of the railroads would have improved racial practices on early 20^th century railroads.

*****

February 2, 2011.  Reading:  Zieger & Gall, AWAU, 34-42.

 Questions:

 The war significantly changed the demographic contours of the US working class.  How so and why so?

 What role did ethnic-racial and gender considerations play in America’s ability to mobilize its labor force for wartime production?

 Why were government leaders here and in Europe particularly concerned about gaining workers’ support during the Great War? 

 What steps did the US government take to ensure worker loyalty?

What were US troops doing in Russia and why did they remain there after the Armistice?

 Why did the Wilson administration turn against its erstwhile ally, organized labor, in the postwar months?

 How can we account for the virulence and savagery of racial conflict in the postwar months?

 What connections, if any, are there among anti-radicalism; labor conflict; and racial violence?

***

February 4, 2011.  Questions re Z&G, pp. 42-49

How can we account for the dramatic decrease in the number of strikes and in the level of labor activism that chacterized the 1920s?

What evidence is there, if any, that immigrants, blacks, and women were able to retain the economic advances they had made in the previous decade?

Z&G write that the working "class did not act like a class in the Marxist sense of the term."  Meaning what?

The decade of the 1920s is often depicted as a period of great prosperity.  How valid is that characterization?

What, if anything, do Z&G tell us about the labor policies of the GOP administrations of the 1920s?
____

1920s--Facts and Figures

1.  In 1920, there are 9 million private autos, one for every 12 people; in 1929, 26.5 million, 1 for every 4.6 people.

 2. In 1920, farmers have about 139,000 trucks and 246,000 tractors; in 1930, 900,000 trucks, 920,000 tractors.

 3.  Value of radios, radio equipment produced:  1921=$12.9 million; 1929=$388 million.  In 1920, virtually no private ownership of radios; by 1925, 25% of households had one; by 1930, 40%.

 4.  In 1920, 38% of households electrified; 1930, 68%.

 5.  In the Twenties, horsepower per worker increases by 50% in manufacturing; 60% in mining; 75% in transport.

 6.  Output per worker increases by 72%, 1919-1929.

 7.  Gainful employment:

            no. employed in mining drops by 80,000

            no. employed in agriculture drops 1 million

            no. employed in manufacturing grows by 100,000

            no. employed in construction grows by 800,000

            no. employed in trade, finance, education, govt. grows by 3.8 million

            no. of females gainfully employed grows by 27.4%

 8.  Population trends:

            Immigration from abroad (not inc. W. Hemisphere):

                        1910-1914:  1.034 million per year

                        1925-29:    304,000

             Between 1915 and 1928, 1.2 million African Americans leave the South for the North and West.

 9.  Average hourly wages in manufacturing 66.2 cts. per hour in 1923 to 71 cts. in 1928.  Real hourly wages increase by 7%; real weekly wages by 2% (work week down 15% [59 to 50 hours], 1900-1926).  Share of wages as % of Value-Added in manufacturing falls from 42.1% in 1919 to 36.9% in 1929.

 10.  In 1929, 21% of all families make less than $1000 per year; 42 less than $1500; 71% less than $2500.  21.5 million families have no savings; 24,000 families have 34% of all savings.

11.  Strikes

Year   No.   No of Workers   % of employed wage earners on strike

1919   3630  4,160,000               20.8

1922   1112  1,610,000                 8.7                                                

1925   1301    428,000                  2.0

1929     921     289,000                 1.2

11.  Union membership:  1920=5,034,000; 1929=3,625,000

12.  Unemployment:  Ranges between 5.2% and 7.7%, 1925-29.

13.  Education:  1890-1924 number of college students increases 352% (cf. 79% general population increase); between 1900 and 1930, increase is 500% (cf. 69% population growth).  Graduate students:  1900=5832; 1930=47,255.  Between 1900 and 1930, an eightfold increase in high school enrollment.  Number of teachers and professors grows 1920-1930 by 41.5% (cf. population growth of 16%).

14.  Life expectancy.  For white females, at birth:  1910=52.54; 1930=62.67.

*****

February 7, 2011.  Quiz on Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, "Disorderly Women:  Gender and Labor Militancy in the Appalachian South," Journal of American History, 73:2 (Sept. 1986):  354-382

 1.  Hall argues that: a) gender distinctions played little role in the Elizabethton strike; b) the rayon strikers found local elites to be surprisingly sympathetic toward and supportive of their labor activism; c) awareness of the role of gender permits important new insights into our understanding of this otherwise well-known episode in labor history; d) parental disapproval of the rash activism of these young women played a key role in the strikers’ defeat.

 2.  The workers who toiled  in the rayon plant were:  a) brought down from the North because of their industrial skills; b) displaced coal miners; c) African Americans initially imported as strike breakers; d) local women.

 3.  The strike that broke out in March, 1929:  a) was fomented by outsiders affiliated with the American Federation of Labor; b) was initiated by the rayon workers themselves, without outside impetus; c) was an immediate failure because only a small handful of workers actually walked out; d) was supported by male workers and opposed by women workers.

 4.  Which of the following statements best characterizes the social and cultural perspectives of the rayon strikers:  a) the striking women were naive and innocent provincials, with little knowledge of the modern world of the 1920s; b) the striking women were surprisingly sophisticated and articulate; c) the strikers were young women who had taken industrial employment only as a distasteful and desperate last resort; d) the strikers were highly skilled men who resented management’s abusive treatment.

 5.  Which of the following statements best characterizes the public behavior of the rayon strikers, according to Hall:  a) they were inventive and even playful in their interaction with the National Guardsmen sent in to “keep order”; b) though the women began the strike, they willingly retreated to the sidelines once actual picketing began; c) anxious to maintain their reputation in the small town, they quickly and decisively turned against women of questionable morals such as Texas Bill and Trixie Perry; d) they were passive and submissive, leaving the “heavy lifting” of labor militancy to the men folk.

                                                                   Bonus question

 Which of the following kinds of sources did Hall rely most heavily on: a) local newspapers; b) reports of federal authorities; c) oral histories; d) trade union records.

***

February 9, 2011.  Reading: Zieger and Gall, 50-65.

          1.  Shares traded on the NY Stock Exchange

 1923–236 million

1926–451 million

1927–577 million

1929–1.1 billion

 2.  Market value of shares traded on the NYSE

 1925–$27 billion

1929 (October)–$87 billion

1933–$18 billion

                         Average closing value, September, 1929=$366.29 a share

                        Average closing value, December, 1932=$96.63 a share

             NY Times average of representative stocks: September, 1929=452; July 1932=52

 3.  Bank failures

 1929–659; $250 million

1930–1352; $853 million

1931–2294; $1.7 billion

1932–1456; $750 million

 4.  Industrial production, last quarter, 1930, is 26% below peak level of summer, 1929

 5.  Unemployment

 April, 1930–3 million

October, 1930–4 million

October, 1931–7 million

October, 1932–11 million

March, 1933–14 million

 6.  Wages and farm income

 Industrial wages drop 42%, 1929-33

Gross farm income (already poor during 1920s) drops by 56%, 1929-33

 7..  Other income indicators, 1929-33

 National income drops from $87.8 billion to $40.2 billion

Per capita income drops form %681 to $459

 Why the Crash?  Both easy and hard to answer.  Easy: a downturn was to be expected; markets are volatile; there had been brief breaks in the market through the summer of 1929.  Hard: Why such a massive sell-off October 23-24?  Why the irreversible downward spiral?  Why didn’t this market “work” the way markets are supposed to–i.e., drive out the speculators, arrive at sensible share prices, and attract capital back in?

 Why did the Crash turn into a Depression?  Galbraith specifies five factors:

 T          Maldistribution of income (low wages, low farm prices and income)

T          Bad banking structure (no FDIC, regulation)

T          Bad corporate structure

T          Problems of international trade and finance (Smoot-Hawley Tariff)

T          Poor state of economic intelligence

 Hoover’s answer:  The Depression was international in its origins.  Autarkic solutions merely delayed recovery (yet he signed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff with apparent enthusiasm). 

Why was the Depression so severe?

 #                      It occurred at a time when the old international financial institutions, which Britain had overseen for 200 years, were weakened and in disarray owing to the effects of World War I; and before newer arrangements that depended on US world financial leadership were in place.

 #                      It occurred at a time when older industrial sectors (heavy steel, textiles, mining, railroads), which employed millions, were in relative decline, and at which newer, growth and employment producing industries (e.g., light metals; petrochemicals; modern food processing; plastics) were not yet sufficiently large to take up the slack.

 #                    Note here the uneven course of the depression.  There were significant upticks in the economy, as well as “depressions-within-the-depression,” notably the “Roosevelt Recession” of 1937-39.  See the chart.

 5.  Why did it last so long?

 1.  Conservatives say–Meddling by government, which interfered with the normal workings of the market and created uncertainty and political conflict.  The pain of those disadvantaged, while regrettable, is a necessary component of capitalism’s creative destruction. 

 2.  Radicals–Capitalism prone to excess and collapse.  An irrational system always teetering on the verge of chaos.  Survives through exploitation and greed.  The chickens had finally come home to roost.  It’ll take a big war this time to save capitalism’s chestnuts.

3.  New Deal liberals–The system combines 19^th century ideas and complex modern realities.  It needs direction in the form of governmental direction and regulation.  The community needs to mobilize its resources to restore prosperity and to assist those put in need through no fault of their own.  Capitalism is too important to be left entirely to the capitalists.

 4.  Keynes–Failure to register the central role of consumption in a modern economy.

                                                                                        ****


February 11, 2011

Reading: Z&G, 50-65; web-posted material re depth, trajectory of the Depression

I.  Brief discussion of causes, trajectory, interpretations of the Great Depression and its place in the narrative of US history.

 II.  The impact of the Great Depression on working people

 A.  What do Zieger and Gall say?

 B.  What do we learn from Helmbold?

******
Here is the quiz that will  NOT be given on February 14, 2011

Helmbold, “Downward Occupational Mobility”

1.  Distinctive sources?:  a) FDR’s “Fireside Chats”; b) Helmbold-conducted interviews; c) Women’s Bureau and related interviews; d) newspapers.

2.  Thesis:  a) lower-income women actually moved up the occupational scale during the 1930s; b) during the 1930s the proportion of married women working for wages decreased; c) downward mobility further marginalized elderly and African American women workers; d) downward mobility was harder on single than on married women.

3.  Which of the following statements about working women’s job preferences in the 1930s is the most accurate:  a) clerical work ranked highest; b) domestic work was most preferred because of its flexible schedule; c) the high wages associated with industrial work made this kind of employment the most desirable; d) government employment lost popularity because it was associated with the demeaning “dole.”

4.  Which of the following statements best captures Helmbold’s findings with respect to working women’s solidarity in the quest for depression-era jobs:  a) black women were more inclined to seek solutions beneficial to all working women; b) women turned en mass to trade union activism as a means of bettering their conditions; c) white women resented black women’s steady depression-era advance and embraced racist solutions to women’s employment problems; d) though white and black women competed for jobs, both increased their political participation in behalf of the New Deal.

5.  On the basis of the material in this article, which of these statements about public provision (i.e., “welfare” and related programs) in the 1930s would seem most valid: a) the National Industrial Recovery Act had a profound effect on women’s employment; b) Hoover’s public assistance programs had a surprisingly positive impact on working women; c) the Social Security Act excluded married women from its coverage; d) public provision, whether governmental or charitable, did little to help working women.

____

February 14, 2011

 Reading: Catch up re Z&G, 50-65; Helmbold essau

 Agenda:

 1.  Comments on the New Deal and its place in American history, following up on class discussion Friday, February 11.  Here are my grades for FDR and the New Deal:

 Relief–B+

 Reform–A-

 Recovery–C-

 2.  Look at Helmbold.  Review Helmbold “quiz.”  Cf. the American women found in Helmbold with those found in Hall.

 3.  Slides illustrating these themes:

 1.  The onset of the Great Depression called into question the corporate-promoted “deal.”  Corporations slashed payrolls, abandoned welfare plans, and imposed more rigorous production standards, thus unilaterally (so it seemed) changing the bargain.  American workers remained committed to high levels of private consumption and improving standards of housing, health, and education.  Since the corporate-sponsored deal of the 1920s now seemed to be abrogated, working people demanded a new deal, one that rested on a revived labor movement and involved a more active and responsive federal government.  Unemployed demonstrations, anti-eviction actions, and strikes flared as the depression deepened.  Working people greeted the election in 1932 of Franklin Roosevelt, with his promise of a new deal, enthusiastically.  They were now determined to build unions and spur the government into action to enable them to resume the march to prosperity and social progress promised in the 1920s.

 2.  While our images of the Great Depression are usually ones of desperate, impoverished people, and of pathetic bread lines and soup kitchens, American working people had internalized the corporate and advertising message of the 1920s.  They believed that to be American was to be entitled to a rising standard of living and continually improving conditions.

 3.  By 1932-33, corporate leaders such as Henry Ford and political celebrants of the new age of industrial plenty, such as Herbert Hoover, appeared to have no coherent answer to the problems of unemployment and poverty, as witnessed by the harsh and counterproductive repression that greeted the Ford Hunger March and the Bonus March.  They stood discredited in the minds of millions of Americans.

 4.  The election of Franklin Roosevelt in 1932 brought hope and optimism, not because of any concrete policies that he advanced but because he was able to project a sense of forward motion and experimentation, and to convey in almost uncanny ways a sense of personal concern for the plight of the unemployed and ill-treated.

 5.  The passage of the National Industrial Recovery Act, with its Section 7(a) concerning labor relations, helped to trigger a remarkable wave of union activism, for which the cautious leaders of the AFL were unprepared.

 6.  The massive strikes of 1934 brought the country closer to raw, naked class conflict than at any time since (pick a year):  1877; 1886; 1919.

***

NEW DEAL LABOR LEGISLATION

 
                            Pre-1935 labor law was, on the whole, pro-union

 Laws governing railroad labor, 1888, 1912, 1916; Railroad Labor Act of 1926, as amended in 1934

 Clayton Anti-Trust Act, 1914 (ostensibly curbing labor injunctions)

 Norris-LaGuardia Act, 1932 (more effectively curbed labor injunctions; outlawed “yellow dog” contracts)

 Davis-Bacon Act, 1931 (“prevailing” [i.e., union] wage rates to be paid in federal construction projects)

 National Industrial Recovery Act, Section 7 (a), 1933 (expresses the right of workers to form unions without employer interference)

 
The Wagner, or National Labor Relations, Act of June 1935:

 “It is hereby declared to be the policy of the United States to eliminate. . . obstructions to the free flow of commerce . . . by encouraging the practice and procedure of collective bargaining and by protecting the exercise of workers of full freedom of association . . .[by] choosing representatives of their own choosing, for the purpose of negotiating the terms of their employment. . . .”

 Purposes: To establish orderly procedures for determining workers’ choices re union representation (and to boost low-income purchasing power via union bargaining); to ameliorate conflict in labor-management relations; to identify and prohibit “unfair labor practices.”  Wagner/Congress use the Constitution’s commerce clause to avoid Supreme Court overturn.

 The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

             Functions and powers: Investigate alleged abuses of workers’ rights and require redress; determine appropriate bargaining units; establish and apply procedures for determining workers’ choice re union representation.  Its findings and directives have the force of law.

             Validated by the Supreme Court in the case of NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp. (1937)

             Initial strong support for union goals and for industrial modes of organization, 1935-41

             Mounting critiques by conservatives, business, and the AFL, which regards NLRB procedures and decisions as overly favorable to the rival CIO

             Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 significantly amends Wagner, strengthening employer “free speech” rights; outlawing certain labor union practices (“closed” shop; secondary boycott); permitting states to outlaw union security contracts (Section 14B); strengthening ability of alleged labor law violators to appeal NLRB decisions via the courts.

       Other important New Deal labor legislation

 Motor Carrier Act, 1935 (federal regulation of airlines, trucking; indirectly facilitates union organization)

 Walsh-Healey Act, 1936 (overtime and related provisions to be followed in federal contract work)

 Fair Labor Standards Act, 1938 (minimum wage/maximum hours legislation; child labor provisions)

 Pros and Cons of the Wagner Act

 Pro: Peaceful mechanism for resolving disputes over union representation; curbs employer victimization of union supporters; plays an important role in dampening violence in labor-management conflict; procedures for determining representation bring ostensibly democratic process to the workplace.

 Con: Limits the autonomy of labor organizations; dampens worker activism; is silent about (and hence implicitly supportive of) racial discrimination by unions; bureaucratizes labor-management relations; way in which the law is enforced much influenced by politics.  Employers believe that the original Wagner Act gives unions unfair advantage and, in effect, penalizes both employers and non- or anti-union workers.

***

February 18, 21.  Z&G, 82-103; Zieger, For Jobs and Freedom, excerpt via ARES.

February 18, 2011.  Reading: Zieger and Gall, 82-103

 I..  STRUCTURAL FACTORS IN THE REBIRTH OF THE LABOR MOVEMENT IN THE 1930S

 1.  Homogenization of the industrial working class

 2.  Worker militancy born of the unmet promises of the 1920s

 3.  Widespread discrediting of corporate stewardship

 4.  Favorable political and governmental alignments

 5.  Energetic and farsighted labor leadership; availability of committed radical activists

 
                                                         II.  CIO-AFL Comparison

 CIO                                                                 AFL

 Industrial unionism                                         Craft unionism

 Racial equality                                                Racial discrimination

 Political engagement                                       Voluntarism

 Radical influences                                           Anti-radicalism

                                                              III.  CIO chronology

 October 16, 1935–Lewis slugs Hutcheson

 September 1, 1936–CIO unions suspended from AFL

 November 3, 1936–FDR Re-elected

 December 30, 1936-February 11, 1937–Flint Sit-Down strike

 March 2, 1937–Steelworkers Organizing Committee signs contract with US Steel

 May 30, 1937–Memorial Day massacre, Chicago

 September, 1937–Roosevelt Recession begins

November 22, 1940–Lewis steps down as CIO president; Philip Murray succeeds

June, 1941–Ford Motor Company signs UAW contract

******

Quiz on Zieger and Gall, 82-103; and Zieger, For Jobs and Freedom, 112-23 (ARES).  February 21, 2011

         1.  The CIO:  a) stressed the need to organize women, white collar, and government employees; b) disdained African American and other minority         workers; c) projected a militant and confrontational orientation; d) stressed the need of the labor movement to cooperate with Big Business.

 2. The CIO steelworkers organization (Steel Workers Organizing Committee, or SWOC):  a) achieved a notable victory over the so-called “Little Steel” companies but never was able to organize workers at giant United States Steel; b) attacked and killed a dozen Chicago policemen at the famous “Memorial Day Massacre”;  c) relied on African American workers in making its initial breakthroughs in organizing the industry; d)  signed a contract with US Steel but failed, at least initially, to organize “Little Steel.”

3. The United Automobile Workers:  a) won a pathbreaking contract with General Motors as a result of the Flint Sit-Down strike; b) organized Ford easily but ran into a stone wall in attempting to organize the “Big Three” automakers; c) unlike most CIO affiliates was a craft union, not an industrial union; d)  barred African Americans from membership.

 4,  John L. Lewis:  a) was a hard-core Socialist; b)  reluctantly embraced industrial unionism when the AFL refused to recognize the United Mine Workers; c) demonstrated unepected qualities of leadership and vision in creating the CIO; d) blundered by refusing to support FDR in the critical election of 1936.

 5.  African American workers were particularly important in the CIO’s efforts to organize the meatpacking industry because:  a) most of the big slaughterhouses were located in the South; b) they toiled in critical areas of the production process, notably on the “kill” floor; c)  the refusal of meatpacking companies to hire them enabled the CIO to enlist the federal government on its side; d) their previous membership in the Socialist Party made them particularly good candidates for recruitment into the CIO.

***

March 2, 2007

Class session of March 2, 2011.  Reading: Z&G, 104-18.

Here are some important points.  What evidence best supports each?  What are the circumstances and implications of each statement?

1.  As was the case a quarter of a century earlier, the onset of war benefited the American working class.

 2.  As America drew closer to war, the already-great involvement of the federal government in labor relations expanded.

 3.  The international crisis of the late 1930s and early 1940s highlighted the important role that Communists and their allies had come to play in the

    American labor movement.

4.  John L. Lewis and Sidney Hillman were allies in the creation of the CIO but became bitter enemies with the onset of World War II.

 5.  In 1940, John L. Lewis’s support of GOP presidential candidate Wendell Willkie shook the House of Labor.

****

March 4 and March 14.  

March 4, 2011 (revision in syllabus).  The reading scheduled for today, Bruce Nelson’s essay on race and labor in the shipyards of Mobile, Alabama, during WWII, is carried over to our first session after the break—March 14.  We’ll make class on Friday, March 4, a “teachable moment,” taking advantage of the current prominence of labor issues, as reflected in the controversy over public employee unionism in Wisconsin, Ohio, and other states, including Florida.  So the assignment, which is entirely optional, for Friday is for each student to think of h/hself as a news reporter.  Having spent an hour or so reading through various accounts of the controversy as reflected in internet media, s/h should come to class on Friday, March 4, armed with questions to pose to the expert (that would be me).  I’ll synthesize the q and a session and will post it on the class website.

You can find some brief background on public employee unionism in Z&G, 209-12.

 There is a lot of website material on the Wisconsin controversy, which has important implications for the future of the US labor movement.  One good one is found at http://www.wistax.org/taxpayer/0402.pdf .  A more partisan one—and one that I find compelling—has been written by distinguished historian Stanley Kutler at http://www.truthdig.com/report/print/what_gov_walker_wont_tell_you_20110220/

 A friend of mine, Joe McCartin, has done an interview that I believe is illuminating on the general subject of public employee unionism.  It can be found at http://www.historyforthefuture.org

 Another interview carries an exchange between labor historian Nancy MacLean and CATO institute spokesman Chris Edwards:  http://whyy.org/cms/radiotimes/2011/02/28/the-future-of-public-employee-unions/

 On Monday, March 14, we’ll go back to the posted schedule, the only exception being that we will also consider the above-mentioned Nelson essay on that day.  Students can expect a quiz on the Nelson essay.

****

Monday, March 14, 2011

Key terms for labor in World War II

 

No strike pledge

 

National War Labor Board

 

Little Steel Formula

 

Maintenance of membership

 

Equality of Sacrifice

 

National service (labor draft)

 

John L. Lewis (1943 coal strikes)

 

Smith-Connally Act

 

Political Action Committee

 

Fair Employment Practice Committee

 

“hate” strikes

 

Rosie the Riveter

____

Quiz for Monday, March 14, 2011.  Bruce Nelson, "Organized Labor and the Struggle for Black Equality in Mobile during World War II," Journal of American History  80: 3 (Dec. 1993):  952-88

 

1.  Which of the following statements about the impact of World War II on the city of Mobile and its environs is the most accurate: a) since military production largely passed this declining city by, the war had little impact on this area of Alabama; b) aggressive recruitment of black workers to man the shipyards displaced thousands of white residents; c) failure initially to make use of the large black population for work in the shipyards necessitated the recruitment of thousands of rural whites, exacerbating the area’s housing shortage; d) the war brought black and white together in a rare example of Deep South racial harmony.

 

2.  Nelson’s account of the activities of John Le Flore suggests that: a) corporate officials were responsible for the racial violence in Mobile; b) African American union activists were typically also active in the local civil rights movement; c) federal officials intervened aggressively in defense of job equality; d) the white clergy turned a blind eye to matters of racial discrimination.

 

3.  Which of the following statements best expresses the dilemma that the CIO Shipyard Workers’ union faced in Mobile and other southern locales: a) Black workers overwhelmingly rejected the CIO; b) the AFL’s egalitarian racial policies won the allegiance of the shipyards’ black workers; c) black workers high levels of support for the CIO tended to alienate the white majority of the labor force; d) the strong Communist influence in the CIO alienated both black and white shipyard workers.

 

4.  Which of the following statements best describes the federal government’s role in dealing with racial problems in Mobile during World War II: a) through the Fair Employment Practice Committee, the government encouraged non-discrimination in wartime production but it lacked powers of enforcement; b) Civil rights legislation during World War II created unparalleled employment opportunities for African Americans; c) the only evidence of a federal presence in Mobile was the dispatch of troops to suppress black workers’ anti-discrimination protests; d) government red tape inadvertently foiled ADDSCO’s efforts to upgrade and promote black workers.

 

5.  With which of the following statements about Mobile’s African American community during the World War II era would Bruce Nelson most likely agree?: a) inert and passive, it was indifferent to the conflict in the shipyards; b) the city’s African Americans actively and energetically sought to advance civil rights both in work places and in the general community; d) misled by radical agitators, Mobile’s black activists impeded the war effort and brought down upon themselves massive governmental repression; d) since Mobile was one of the few southern cities in which blacks enjoyed the full range of civil and political rights, most African American residents regarded the labor troubles in the shipyards as an annoying distraction.

*****

March 16, 2011

Discussion questions.

 Ruth Milkman, "Rosie the Riveter Revisited:  Management's Postwar Purge of Women Automobile Workers," On the Line:  Essays in the History of Auto Work, ed. Nelson Lichtenstein and Stephen Meyer (Urbana and Chicago:  Univ. of Illinois Press, 1989):  129-152

 1.  The most important factor in driving women from the auto factories after World War II was:  a) employer hiring policies; b) union indifference; c) women's uninterest in continued industrial employment; d) pro-veteran federal legislation.

 2.  Before World War II, women enjoyed relatively few employment opportunities in the auto industry because:  a) employers preferred to hire blacks for low-wage jobs; b) the industry's high-wage profile insured that men would hold most production jobs; c) the physically heavy work characteristic of auto work precluded large-scale employment of women; d) most auto work was highly skilled and thus controlled by powerful male-only craft unions.

 3.  During World War II: a) few women were willing to work in auto plants; b) the experiment in female employment was a dismal failure; c) female employment was carefully portrayed as a temporary expedient; d) employers proved eager to employ women as a means of reducing wage levels.

 4.  The electrical industry compiled a better record of providing women with industrial employment than did the auto industry because: a) its union was more progressive than the UAW; b) its employers were more enlightened than were the auto executives; c) it had had a long record of female employment before World War II; d)  only kidding--its record was actually worse than auto's.

 5.  Which of the following statements about black auto workers after World War II is most accurate:  a) since few blacks were hired during the war, few were laid off after the war; b) since blacks had entered the auto industry in massive numbers before WWII, they were better able to keep their jobs than were the more recently hired women; c) black workers were better able than women workers to keep their new jobs in good part because of the existence of a strong civil rights movement that made impossibly any effort to drive them out of Detroit-area plants; d) blacks retained their positions despite the opposition of the UAW.

***

Weblinks for Women's History Month (Labor History):

http://labor-studies.org/?s=women%27s+history+month

 http://www.cluw.org/links-rights.html

March 18, 2011.  Z&G,  144-59

1. Compare and contrast the postwar strike wave of 1945-46 with that of 1919-20.

 2.  In what sense might it be said that unions “won” these strikes?

 3.  In what ways might it be said that employers “won” these strikes?

_____

Provisions of the Taft-Hartley Act, 1947 

Expands National Labor Relations Board from three to five members and strengthens the office of the Board’s General Counsel–can seek injunctions vs. labor or management

 Makes Board rulings appealable in the courts

 Outlaws a range of practices or strategies typically pursued by unions, to wit:

             –restrictions on unauthorized strikes; “political” strikes; jurisdictional strikes

             –outlaws secondary boycotts

             –prohibits closed shop agreements

             –prohibits collective bargaining on the part of foremen, supervisors

             –restricts labor political activities         

Requires union officials to sign a non-Communist affidavit

 Permits states to outlaw union security agreements

 Authorizes the President to intervene in strikes or potential strikes that create [or threaten to create] a “national emergency” by imposing an 80-day “cooling off” period and requiring that workers vote on the employers’ last offer

 Greatly expands employers’ right to oppose union organization (“free speech” provisions)

 *****

March 18, 21, 2011

Questions about the Taft-Hartley Act:

•         1.  What is the relationship between Taft-Hartley and the Wagner Act?

•         2.  Organized labor was deeply hostile to T-H.  What specific features did unionists point to in terming it a “slave labor” law?

•         3.  What evidence is there that unions’ objections to the new law were shared by workers?

***

March 21, 2011.  Reading: Z&G, 159-81            

                                                                 Postwar politics

1.  Why did political action assume such importance in the post-New Deal period, as compared with earlier times?

2.  What options did politically minded labor activists have in the 1940s as to where to commit their energies and resources?

3.  Unions became more politically energized, but did workers?

                                                             The Communist Issue

1.  Why did the CIO, but not the AFL, have a Communist problem?

 2.  Before 1948 CIO leaders tolerated Communists.  Why attack them now?

 3.  Some historians believe that in ousting the so-called “pro-Soviet” unions, the CIO shot itself in the foot and severely crippled the entire labor movement.

****

March 23, 2011

The “Union Corruption” Issue

 

Cite:  David Witwer, Corruption and Reform in the Teamsters Union (Chicago and Urbana:  University of Illinois Press, 2003)

Importance of the McClellan Committee hearings, 1957-1959 (U.S. Senate Select Committee on Improper Practices in the Fields of Labor or Management).

 1.  Why this committee and why now?  Two underlying reasons:

 A.  Fears of union power, especially in wake of the merger of the AFL-CIO, both with respect to economic role and political operations

 B.  Revelations about corrupt and coercive activities associated with a number of unions, notably the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.

 2.  Composition of the committee: Committee chair is John McClellan, Democrat, Arkansas.

 Other members include John F. Kennedy (D, MA) and Barry Goldwater (R, AZ).   Robert F. Kennedy is Chief Counsel.

 3.  Despite the title, the focus is on the misdeeds and alleged misdeeds of labor officials.  The Committee spends virtually no time on employers’ efforts to combat union organization.         

4.  Rise of the Teamsters union, 1933-1960.  Ousted from AFL-CIO in 1957.

5.  Revelations about Teamsters’ operations under its two postwar presidents, Dave Beck (1952-57) and James Hoffa (1957-1971 [in prison, 1967-71]).  Blatant misuse of union funds for personal gain (Beck); prolonged association with organized crime (Hoffa); misuse of pension funds; jury tampering; personal fraud and corruption; evidences of betrayal of trust (collusive bargaining; sweetheart contracts; intimidation of dissidents).

6.  Business interests, however, were less concerned with these matters and more concerned with organized labor’s economic power.  The Teamsters had pioneered innovative organizing tactics with great success and had successfully found ways around some of the restrictive provisions of the Taft-Hartley Act (e.g., secondary boycotts).

7.  The hearings eventually resulted in the passage in 1959 of the Landrum-Griffin Act, which addressed three broad areas of concern:

            ****Making union financial activities more transparent

            ****Strengthening the democratic rights of union members vis-a-vis union leaders

            ****Strengthening restrictions on organizing practices

 8.  Importance of the Hearings and the Landrum-Griffin Act.  This focus on union misdeeds comes at the apparent zenith of union power and influence.  Union membership peaks at 18.4 million in 1956.  Union political influence is impressive, as seen in the defeats of Right to Work referenda in California and Ohio (1958).  AFL-CIO very active in 1958 congressional elections, which returns the most liberal and, ostensibly at least, pro-labor Congress since the 1930s.  Note here, though, the growing potency of an employer counter-attack, as evidenced in the creation of the National Right to Work Committee in 1955.  Employers were concerned about union economic and political power, not about corruption and alleged corruption per se (indeed, the McClellan Committee hearings uncovered–but did not publicize–the pervasive role of employers in instigating and profiting from collusive arrangements).  Thus in 1959 a US Chamber of Commerce spokesman said “The McClellan hearings gave us the train to ride on; they were the bulldozer clearing the path” for further restrictions on union organizing activities.            The McClellan Committee hearings and the resulting legislation are an important milestone in the downward trajectory of organized labor’s economic influence, political clout, and public reputation.

***

March 25, 2011

Krugman, Conscience of a Liberal

1.  The Great Depression and the Great Compression

2.  Gilded Age vs. Golden Age

3.  Organized labor’s role in the Golden Age

4.   Factors that Krugman seems to ignore or slight:

Postwar US. International supremacy

Role of military production in promoting affluence

Cheap energy

***

March 28, 2011

American Workers and the Cold War, 1939-1991

I.  American Workers and the Bolshevik Revolution, 1917-1939

II. War and Peace, 1939-1945

III. The Battle for Labor Loyalty, 1946-1950

IV. American Workers and the Military-Industrial Complex, 1950-1975

V.  American Labor and the Third World, 1945-1975

VI. American Labor and the Erosion of Soviet Power

VII. Workers, Unions, and the Wal-Mart World

            There is a lot written on the Communist issue and US labor, from the outbreak of the Bolshevik Revolution through the ouster of pro-Soviet unions from the CIO in 1949-50.  Indeed, this subject is a cockpit of historiographical and ideological debate, one in which I have participated.  Thus, the first three chapters of the book constitute a synthetic overview, based on this extensive literature and on my own research, as reflected in my earlier writings.

            The subject matter for chapter IV, on the other hand, is under-studied.  There is a substantial literature on labor relations during this period, some of it indirectly dealing with the theme of workers and the M-I Complex.  But historians have not addressed the ways in which unions and workers experienced the evolving Cold War on the shop floor and in the bargaining arena.  This chapter will contain a case study dealing with labor relations at Cape Canaveral, scene of intense labor-management conflict and frequent job actions in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

            There is, again, a scattered literature on American workers and the Third World.  Much of it is rather polemical., although a more nuanced literature is emerging, as exhibited in recent books by Wehrle, Frank, and Battista.  This chapter will rely heavily on newspaper reports, labor organization proceedings and publications, and congressional testimony.

            Chapter VI focuses on the role of organized labor in effecting regime change, especially with reference to Poland.  There is not an established literature on this subject and I expect to use archival material from the AFL-CIO and UAW, along with labor publications, public statements, and news reports.  I hope to link organized labor’s activity vis-a-vis Polish Solidarity with its leadership’s efforts to counteract Reagan-era attacks on organized labor’s legitimacy.  This chapter will juxtapose the repression of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) and organized labor’s Solidarity Day demonstrations, both of which took place in 1981.

            The final chapter will reflect on changes in the occupational structure, labor movement, and political climate that have emerged since the collapse of the USSR in 1991.  It will compare and contrast the ideology of the workplace at a time in which the old dichotomies–social democracy vs. “free enterprise”–seem to have become moot and in which the ideological supremacy of business and the subordinate status of workers seem to be paradigmatic.  This chapter will also discuss workers’ response to 9/11, the implications for federal employees of the USA Patriot Act, and the “War on Terror,” in part by examining the organization US Labor Against the War (USLAW).  This section of the book will consider the role of the AFL-CIO’s “city centrals,” i.e., local-regional multi-union bodies such as the North Central Florida Central Labor Council.  These bodies have emerged as centers of anti-war laborite activity.

 Quiz.  March 28.  Z&G, 214-20; Edmund F. Wehrle, Between a River and A Mountain: The AFL-CIO and the Vietnam War (Ann Arbor: University of MichiganPress, 2005), 173-99 (ARES)

 1.  Which of the following characterizations best captures George Meany’s outlook on foreign policy?  He was: a) an isolationist; b) a fellow traveler; c) an anti-communist; d) a peacenik.

 2.  From Edmund F. Wehrle’s book we learn that the (South) Vietnamese labor federation, the CVT, was: a) heavily dependent on the AFL-CIO; b) a communist front; c) repudiated by the US government; d) a collaborationist body funded by the North Vietnamese.

 3.  According to Wehrle, organized labor’s involvement in Vietnam: a) revealed the limitations of liberal anti-communism; b) alienated the Nixon and Ford administrations; c) was motivated by a desire to curry favor with the Johnson administration; d) was a cynical ploy designed to increase military spending (and, hence, employment of union members).

 4.  Liberal critics of the War in Vietnam: a) were pro-Communist; b) broke with the AFL-CIO over the latter’s support for Democratic Presidential candidate George McGovern in the 1972 election; c) faulted the AFL-CIO for its support for the war: d) found no allies within the labor movement for their opposition to the war.

 5.  Wehrle refers repeatedly to “labor’s free trade union ideology.”  By this phrase he means: a) union members should be “free” of paying dues; b) unions should lead the way in promoting socialism at home and abroad; c) organized labor, both at home and abroad, should be free of governmental dictation; d) unions should remain “free”from entanglements with their counterparts in other countries.

***

March 30, 2011.  Z&G, 220-28.  See also Zieger, For Jobs and Freedom: Race and Labor in America since 1865 (2007), chapter 6.

1.  Hand back and review the two previous quizzes, paying special attention to the question about the AFL-CIO merger on the March 25 quiz.  Deal with the issue of foreign policy, Vietnam thorough discussion of the quiz questions on the March 28 quiz.

2.  Introduce the theme of race and labor, stressing:

Race as a political, not a biological, concept

Review the race and labor theme as previously dealt with in the course–refer to Letwin; Arnesen; the CIO experience; Nelson’s essay on WWII.

3.  Chronological high points re race and labor, post-World War II

–Randolph and Meany clash at the 1959 AFL-CIO convention

–The March on Washington (for Jobs and Freedom), 8/28/63

–The Civil Rights Act of 1964 (cite Title VI and VII); Voting Rights Act, 1965

--The Memphis Sanitation Workers strike, spring, 1968

 –The heyday of “affirmative action”; note Griggs v. Duke Power, 1971

 –Atlanta Sanitation Workers strike, spring, 1977

 4.  Structural changes in the economy limiting black gains

***

April 1, 2011

Z&G, 229-39

The merger of the AFL and CIO in 1955 enhanced organized labor’s political and legislative operations.

In the postwar period, organized labor became an integral part of–some would say a “junior partner in”–the Democratic Party.

By the Sixties, organized labor was both part of the political establishment and the target of restive rebellions.

As was the case with virtually every major institution, organized labor felt the strains and stresses of the war in Vietnam.

The labor movement was a consistent, if often difficult, ally of the civil rights movement  in the political arena.

 The labor movement was most successful politically when it worked with other liberal groups for general interest legislation; least effective in advancing distinctively pro-union position

***

April 4–“Introduction,” Jefferson Cowie, Stayin’ Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class (New York: New Press, 2010), 1-19; Joshua B. Freeman, "Hardhats:  Construction Workers, Manliness, and the 1970 Pro-War Demonstrations," Journal of Social History 26: 4 (Summer 1993):  725-44 (ARES)

 Here are some study questions to facilitate your reading. 

 
1.  Why does Freeman regard the May, 1970, assaults of NYC construction workers on anti-war demonstrators significant?

 2.  According to Freeman, how had the public image of construction workers changed over the course of the 20^th century?  What social and historical significance does he attach to these changes?  What reasons does Freeman give for the replacement of the assemblyline worker with the construction worker as the paradigmatic blue collar representative in the past generation?

 3.  There are, acknowledges Freeman, ethnic and environmental factors that do help significantly to shape the mentalite of construction workers and do encourage a certain hyper-masculinity.  What are some of these?

 4.  In the final analysis, however, Freeman rejects these explanations for the crude and aggressive behavior associated with construction workers in the media and in popular culture.  He suggests other, more underlying, reasons for the changing mentalite and public reputation of these workers.

 5.  What was (is?) the “New Deal consensus”?

 6.  Who is Dewey Burton and why does Cowie devote so much attention to him?

 7.  Why did Dewey Burton vote for Ronald Reagan in 1980?

 8.  Says Cowie, “The 1970s. . . simultaneously appear both irrelevant to us [today] and the foundation of our own time.”  How should labor historians such as we are think about the Seventies (a decade curiously neglected in Z&G, by the way)?

***

Zieger, Intro, April 18, 2011

 1.  Where this essay came from.

 2.  The theme of the New (and New New) South.  What’s “the South” anyway?

 3.  Southern Exceptionalism–what are its components, trajectory?  “Number One Economic Problem”; exceptionalism as it relates to a) race; b) labor relations.

 4.  Over the past 2 decades, what have been the most significant changes in the South’s social, demographic, and employment profiles?

 5. Why is the steep decline of the South’s textile (and garment) industry so remarkable and problematic?

 6.  What did you learn from this essay about political patterns and voting behavior in the New New South?

 7.  Why have unions experienced–and why do they continue to experience–such difficulty in the South?

 8.  The author posits that Wal-Mart and other innovative southern employers have decisively changed the previously dominant “Fordist paradigm” and the once-prevalent New Deal labor relations regime.  Comment.

****

Running update

April 20, 2011

Two issues I want to bring to your attention:

1) The role of the scholar (and of the student) in relation to social activism.  Naomi Schaefer Riley, The Faculty Lounges and Other Reasons Why You Won’t Get the College Education You Paid for is highly critical of scholars who use their classrooms as bully pulpits in behalf of various (left-wing) causes.  At the same time, she and other critics of academic activism seem unperturbed by the growing corporate involvement in the university and by the unchallenged prevalence of corporate and “entrepreneurial” values that characterize large swathes of the campus, notably the colleges of business, law, medicine, and engineering.

            The critiques of people such as Riley and David Horowitz, founder of the activist group Students for Academic Freedom and critic of the alleged leftist bias of professors in Liberal Arts fields.  This issue is particularly pertinent perhaps re such subjects as labor history, African American History, Women’s History, and the like.  Vide the Arizona law banning courses in ethnic studies.  Labor and Working-Class History Association (LAWCHA) and recent controversy surrounding bitter conflicts within the labor movement.  Role of Labor Centers (e.g., Center for Labor Research and Education at FIU), which are under attack as founts of pro-labor sentiment.  Note also the Cronin controversy in Wisconsin (and related issues in Michigan).  Separation of e-mail accounts.

            For some people, to be a supporter of organized labor is to be taking sides on a controversial matter.  I hope I’ve been both up-front and reasonable in my approach to these matters.  My bottom line was expressed in the speech I had you read in which I sought to outline my view of the civic role of organized labor in a democratic society.  In that talk, I stressed:

1.  Organized labor’s role in moderating inequality and setting standards for workers’ compensation, occupational safety, and workplace treatment.

2.  The ongoing need for clear and articulate voice for working people and for lower-income citizens in public discourse over issues such as Social Security, taxation, economic policy, and education; and in posing alternatives to prevailing corporate views of public values, human rights, and civic identity. 

3.  Labor’s role in encouraging cooperation and amity and in combating racism, ethnocentrism, sexism, xenophobia in an increasingly diverse workforce.

4.  And labor’s role in bringing a modicum of democracy to the most authoritarian venue in American life, the workplace.

 

2).  The future and trajectory of the labor movement.  Here I read from a recent essay I wrote concerning several books by historians, including Bethany Moreton, about workers and Wal-Mart.

            These three books implicitly ask historians to address the question of change and continuity in recent U.S. labor history.  Are the storied battles of labor’s turbulent past at all relevant to the circumstances in which workers now find themselves?  Is there perhaps now a “broken narrative” in labor’s story, forever separating Sam Walton’s blue-smocked clerks from John L. Lewis’s militant miners and Walter Reuther’s rebellious autoworkers?  Afer all, declares AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka, “At a time when America desperately needs stronger unions . . .  nostalgia for organized labor’s past is no strategy for our future.”

             Perhaps historians in the future will see the “Retail Revolution” (the title of a book by historian Nelson Lichtenstein) as having finally put paid to the notion of a dynamic working class as an agent of progressive social change.  Then again, we may be wise to recall the words of George Barnett (quoted in AWAU), one of the doyens of depression-era industrial relations, who in 1932 declared that there was “no reason to believe that American trade unionism will so revolutionize itself. . . as to become in the next decade a more potent social influence than it has been in the last decade.”  As students of labor history, you will recognize that Barnett’s words were spoken just before the most spectacular explosion of labor activism in the country’s history, leading to the birth of the CIO and the mass organization of the economy’s then-central core industries.  All in all, I guess my final message to you would be to save a place for labor issues in your ongoing agenda of things of which to keep abreast.  Save your union card; labor may rise again.

****

Final exam

Final exam, AMH 3500.  Spring 2011

 

Part A.  Write an essay of about 1500 words (6-7 pp., double-spaced) on one of the three questions below.  This essay accounts for 80% of the final exam grade.  You may turn the exam in during the scheduled exam period (April 28 at 5:30) or put it at any time before then in the box outside my office door (207 Keene-Flint Hall).  It is essential that you keep a copy of your paper.  Please staple the answer sheet for the multiple-choice portion of the exam to your essay, being sure to put your name on both.

 

The best essays are ones in which the author arrives at conclusions, states them at the outset, and uses these conclusions as a means of organizing the essay.  Mid-level essays are ones in which the author throws a lot of more or less accurate chronologically organized factual information at the reader.  Poor essays lack direction and are characterized by evasion, misinformation, and careless writing.  Remember the “Rules for take-home exams” that are linked on the on-line syllabus.

                                         Write on one of the following (80% of grade):

 

1.  You have been invited to give a talk to labor activists, union officers, and other supporters and friends of the labor movement on the subject “Race and Labor in Modern [i.e., c.  1870-2011] US History.”  These folks expect you to be frank, fair-minded, and authoritative [authoritative: well-informed, possessing sure grasp of subject–not synonymous with “authoritarian”].  Write out such a talk.

 

2.  Your subject: the role of government in labor relations.  The time period: That covered by this course (i.e., c. 1870-2011).  Your task:  To write an essay discussing the role the various branches of the federal government, and, where relevant, state governments in dealing with labor problems and labor relations.

 

3.  Write an essay on the theme of gender in modern [i.e., 1870-2011] US labor history, remembering that the word “gender” refers to men as well as to women..

 

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Part B:   Answer all ten multiple-choice questions on the attached sheet and staple it to your paper, making sure that your name is on it.  Each question has one, and only one, correct answer.  Each m.c. answer is worth 2 points for a total of 20.

 

1.  According to Bethany Moreton: a) Wal-Mart’s super macho workplace culture has alienated its female employees; b) Wal-Mart has an exemplary record of gender equity with respect to wages and employment and promotion opportunities; c) a pattern of Christian service characterizes Wal-Mart’s workplace culture; d) while Wal-Mart proclaims its family-friendly policies, in fact the giant corporation disdains the women who constitute the majority of its work force.

 

2.  In comparing the Knights of Labor with the Industrial Workers of the World, which of the following statements is the most supportable?:  a) Both were socialist organizations; b) The Knights of Labor grew directly out of the failure of  the IWW to recruit immigrant workers; c) Both organizations, though they differed in ideology,  favored organizing workers regardless of skill, race, or gender; d) Both organizations favored political action, as opposed to strikes and boycotts, as the primary means to achieve their goals.

 

3.  Which of the following statements about the role of immigrants in the American labor force during the period ca. 1880-1920 is the most supportable:  a) so-called “new” immigrants played little role in the industrial labor force; b) the  “Americanization” of immigrants was a contested process; c) immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe had little involvement with  labor unions or social protest; d) since the new immigrants shared the religious and ethnic background of the so-called “old” immigrants, employers had little trouble in acculturating them to industrial labor.

 

4.  Which of the following statements about the relationship between organized labor and African American workers is the most supportable?  a)  Since the major national labor organizations, from the 19th century onward, refused to recruit or represent black workers, African Americans have been resolutely anti-union; b) In the twentieth century, black workers have been little involved with organized labor largely because most have worked in rural and agricultural pursuits; c) Since at least the late 19th century, the labor movement has had a troubled and ambivalent relationship to African American workers; d) Over the past sixty years, unions have had much success in organizing black workers but African Americans have been hostile toward  the political activities of their unions.

 

5.  Which of the following statements about labor legislation in American history is the most valid:  a) the original purpose of the Wagner, or National Labor Relations Act, was to encourage collective bargaining; b) before the 1930s, the federal courts usually intervened in labor disputes to protect workers and support collective bargaining; c) employers have bitterly resisted most labor legislation, notably the Wagner Act, the Taft-Hartley Act, and the Smith-Connally Act; d) “Right-to-Work” laws seek to provide employment for all able-bodied workers.

 

6.  The CIO: a) avoided involving organized labor in political activities; b) achieved major breakthroughs in organizing mass production workers; c) replicated the AFL’s concentration on organizing skilled workers; d) was taken over by Communist elements in the great purges of 1949-50.

 

7.  During World War II, the federal government:  a) outlawed strikes; b) tried unsuccessfully to crush the labor movement; c) attempted with considerable success to elicit labor leaders’ support of the war effort; d) avoided the mistakes of World War I by refusing to involve itself in labor relations problems.

 

8.  According to Jefferson Cowie (and to the ensuing class discussion), the 1970s is considered a “hinge” decade because: a) the labor movement suffered devastating setbacks in the mid-to-late Seventies; b) passage of labor law reform during the Carter administration revitalized a previously moribund labor movement; c) while organized labor enjoyed unprecedented political and legislative success, its membership decline steepened; d) despite so-called “stagflation,” America’s workers made substantial gains with respect to wages and “fringe” benefits.

 

9.  Which of the following statements about the role of gender in American labor history is the most supportable:  a) There has been a steady decrease in the proportion of women employed outside the home since at least the onset of the Great Depression; b) After World War II, women were remarkably successful in retaining the jobs they had gained in industry on a “temporary” wartime basis; c) Despite important gains associated with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, women continue to experience discrimination and harassment in many workplaces ; d) Victimized by employers and unions alike, women have proven disproportionately susceptible to the lure of authoritarian political movements.

 

10.  Which of the following statements about the developments in the US South over the past quarter century is the most accurate: a) continued industrial expansion has brought the once-poverty-stricken South into full economic parity with the rest of the country; b) Southern-based employers such as Wal-Mart and Federal Express have (according to Zieger, at least) developed a new paradigm for labor relations; c) continued outmigration on the part of African Americans has hampered southern economic growth; d) white blue collar voters have kept the “Solid South” firmly in the Red State (i.e., Democratic) column.

                                   

 

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