1. What was distinctive about the
postwar strike wave? Who won, employers or workers/unions?
2. Compare and contrast what happened to organized labor in the
immediate aftermath of WWII with its experience afte WWI.
3. Between let's say 1916 (Adamson Act) and 1938 (Fair Labor
Standards Act), every example of federal labor legislation had been
favorable to unions. Now however, the tide was turning. Why
did labor unionists hate the Taft-Hartley Act (aka:
Taft-Heartless Act) so passionately? Why was Congress now so
hostile to organized labor?
4. Compare and contrast the approaches to politics of the AFL and
the CIO in the WWII and immediate postwar period. What did each
federation bring to the political table? To what extent did their
agendas and strategies differ?
5. To what extent--if any--could either federation legitimately
claim to "speak" politically for wage-earners generally?
6. Why did Communism as an ideology and as the basis of an
existing
political-economic system (i.e., as in the USSR) pose particular
problems for labor activists?
7. Why did the CIO, but not the AFL, have a "Communist problem"?
8. Was there anything admirable about American Communists in the
WWII and immediate postwar period?
9. What price, if any, did the CIO pay for its ousting of
allegedly Communist-oriented unions?
*****
April 4 & 6, 2007. Zieger and Gall, 182-209
1. By c. 1960, to what extent had the agenda of the labor
militants of the 1930s been realized?
2. What were the most impressive achievements of the post-WWII US
labor movement?
3. What were its most severe and challenging contemporary
problems?
4. If you had been a long-range planner working with AFL-CIO
leaders at the time of the merger in 1955, what advice might you have
given with reference to prospects, problems, and possibilities for the
future?
*****
April 9, Z&G, 229-39. Labor and politics, 1955-68+
****
April 11–Z&G, 214-20
1. Differentiate the terms "New Left" and "Old Left," as they
relate to labor and politics in the period c. 1930-1973.
2. In what ways and to what extent did blue collar workers
participate in the general social malaise of the 1960s?
3. The topic: The US labor movement and US foreign policy
as it relates to:
World War I
World War II
The Cold War
Vietnam
4. Who was Jay Lovestone and why did people say such nasty things
about him?
*****
April 13, Z&G, 220-28
1. Which of these two titles would be most appropriate for a
paper on the leader of the AFL-CIO in the 1950s and 1960s?:
A). George Meany: Civil
Rights Advocate
B) George Meany: Enemy of Black Workers
2. Who was Herbert Hill and why was he saying all those nasty
things about the AFL-CIO?
3. The UAW's Walter Reuther was a staunch supporter of equal
rights for African Americans, right?
4. How did supporters of the labor movement's record on race
respond to DRUM and other critics?
*****
April 16
AMH 3500. April 16, 2007 Reading: Michael Honey, “Martin
Luther King, Jr., the Crisis of the Black Working Class, and the
Memphis Sanitation Strike,”
Southern
Labor in Transition, 1940-1995, ed. Robert H. Zieger
(University of Tennessee Press, 1997), 146-75
1. Memphis, Tennessee: a) is of little interest historically, since it
is a stereotypical “Old South,” mint-and-julep town; b) was notable in
the 1960s for the complete disfranchisement of its African American
citizens; c) provides a good laboratory for the study of the
interaction of civil rights and race-related economic problems; d)
endured a lengthy sanitation strike despite the recent (1967) election
of a liberal and enlightened mayor.
2. According to Honey, Martin Luther King, Jr.: a) was an elitist
black leader who paid little attention to the economic problems of
lower income folks; b) had an astute and prescient [prescient:
anticipative; forward-looking] grasp of the connections between
economic and civil rights concerns; c) refused to cooperate with
organized labor because of its racist practices; d) was becoming
increasingly detached from political and economic concerns in the year
or so before his death.
3. Honey describes some of the general demographic and economic
tendencies characterizing American life in the 1950s and 1960s.
Which of the following phrases best captures his treatment of this
theme insofar as African American workers were concerned? a)
black economic advance stagnates; b) rising proportion of industrial
jobs benefits unskilled workers; c) African Americans achieve economic
equality with whites; d) ironically, civil rights achievements fragment
the black community.
4. According to Honey, Memphis’s sanitation workers: a) gained
little from union recognition; b) organized and won their strike
despite the indifference of the national labor movement; c) effectively
linked themes of labor rights and civil rights; d) waged their strike
with little support from among the city’s African American elites.
5. Which of the following statements best captures Honey’s
understanding of Dr. King’s enduring legacy: a) without economic
justice, civil rights advance remains compromised; b) non-violence is
the most important lesson to be derived from Dr. King’s life; c)
organized labor and civil rights are, in the end, incompatible; d) Dr.
King achieved more during his “moderate” pre-1965 phase than he did in
his “radical” post-1965 phase.
****
April 18, 2007. Nancy MacLean, “The Hidden History of Affirmative
Action: Working Women’s Struggles in the 1970s and the Gender of
Class,” Feminist Studies 25: 1 (Spring 1999): 42-78
According to MacLean:
1. So-called “Affirmative Action” has largely benefitted white,
well-educated, and professional women, rather than working-class women
and women of color.
2. Affirmative Action measures were initially introduced by
federal judges and OEO functionaries rather than by working women
themselves.
3. In the 1970s and 1980s, women sought entry into occupations
such as the building trades and coal mining primarily because wages
were higher and benefits were better than could be found in
“traditional” women’s work.
4. Despite its progressive reputation, the organized labor
movement has been the consistent and unrelenting enemy of affirmative
action, whether focused on racial or gender issues.
5. By the term the “hidden history” of affirmative action,
MacLean is referring to the government’s refusal to make archival
material and court records available to historians.
April 20, 2007. Discussion of Ira Katznelson,
When Affirmative Action Was White.
Note that students have already read and discussed the chapters dealing
with the 1930-1955 or so period.
We need to help Mr. Duncan and Mr. Bamberg, who are taking a different
course with me also this semester, do well on their final exam, which
will focus on this book. See the on-line syllabus for HIS 3942.
First, Nancy MacLean’s view of the “hidden history” of affirmative
action.
1. Tell us about LBJ–who he was, where it came to, what he was up
to.
2. Why does Katznelson believe that the economic and related
difficulties being experienced by large numbers of African Americans
constitutes a central challenge to American society?
3. Why doesn’t Katznelson give us a detailed account of the
actual origins, implementation, and impact of the affirmative action
programs that emerged in the wake of the Civil Rights Acts of the 1960s?
4. Why is he so sketchy and even vague when it comes to remedial
public action to compensate for the processes that he has been
documenting in the book?
5. What is Katznelson’s view of his most important contribution
to our understanding, as citizens, of the problems of racial inequality
that we face?
6. What questions would you like to ask Katznelson were he here
with us today?
*****
Sessions
April 23, 2007, Z&G, chapter 8.
Class discussion questions
1. Since this edition of AWAU was completed, employment in
manufacturing in the US has declined by about 3 million jobs.
Today only about 15% of American workers are in the manufacturing
sector.
2. Although the labor movements in almost all economically
advanced countries have experienced a decline in membership and
influence, nowhere has the erosion in union strength been more
pronounced than in the US.
3. Despite its relatively shrinkage in membership and its collective
bargaining troubles, organized labor remains a potent force in American
politics.
4. Whereas once the labor movement scorned or ignored minorities and
women, these groups now constitute its lifeblood. About 40% of
union membership is female.
5. There are, broadly speaking, two conservative perspectives on
the role of the labor movement in modern life. They are:
1. Unions are illegitimate monopolies whose
growth and influence in the period c. 1933-
1968 as the product of unusual historical
circumstances and whose demise is to be celebrated.
2. Unions, though prone (like all
institutions) to abuse, are a useful component of a vibrant civic
culture and as such play a worthwhile, if all too often these days
partisan, role in American life.
6. The growing gap between the well-off and others has been a
fact of life in America for the past 25 years. Opinions differ as
to whether it is a pernicious, divisive development or a necessary
condition in providing incentives for entrepreneurship and economic
advance.
7. In the 1930s old line laborites warned that the seemingly
pro-union National Labor Relations Act could (and, some said, would
inevitably) become an impediment to organized labor.
8. Few issues in recent years have generated such bitterness and
division as so-called “free trade” initiatives such as NAFTA and the
more recent FTAA program. Concerns about so-called
“globalization” and its impact on US living standards arouse fierce
partisan debate.
9. Whereas for a century the US was among the most strike-prone
industrial nations, for the past two decades it has been at the bottom
of the league tables.
10. While this subject is not treated in chapter 8, the response
of organized labor to the war in Iraq raises interesting questions and
invites historical comparisons.
****
Final exam, AMH 3500. Spring 2007.
Part A. Write an essay of about 1500 words (6-7 pp.) on one of
the three questions below. This essay accounts for 70% of the
final exam grade. You may turn the exam in during the scheduled
exam period (May 3 at 9:30) or put it at any time before then in the
box outside my office door (236 Keene-Flint Hall).
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. Be sure to review the instructions on the on-line
syllabus for exam s (see the link on the first page of this syllabus).
Questions–Write on one of the following:
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. 1870-2007] 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 the federal government in labor
relations. The time period: That covered by this course (i.e., c.
1870-2007). Your task: To write an essay discussing the
role the various branches of the federal government in dealing with
labor problems and labor relations.
3. Write an essay on the theme of gender in modern [i.e.,
1870-2007] US labor history, remembering that the word “gender” refers
to men as well as to women..
*****
Final exam
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 3 points for a total of 30.
1. The main point of Ira Katznelson’s book When Affirmative
Action Was White is: a) that so-called “affirmative action” is in
reality racism in reverse; b) New Deal efforts to intervene in the
economy so as to benefit African Americans largely failed; c) key New
Deal, World War II, and postwar veterans programs constituted a
hitherto unacknowledged “affirmative action for whites”; d) the New
Deal broke the hold of previously all-powerful southern white
congressional leaders and led to pathbreaking civil rights legislation
in the 1930s and 1940s.
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. Which of the following statements about the political behavior
of American workers in the period since the mid-1930s is the most
accurate: a) They have tended to support the Democratic Party
although the GOP has made significant inroads into the so called “labor
vote”; b) Since the advent of new labor leadership in 1995, the AFL-CIO
has drastically reduced its political involvement; c) Since blue collar
work has declined so massively, working people no longer play a
distinctive political role; d) Gender has historically been a more
significant factor in workers’ voting patterns than has either class or
race.
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 general character
and direction of organized labor in the period ca. 1980-present is the
most supportable: a) Declining membership, weakened political
influence, hostile employers, and a non-union friendly legal
environment have posed sharp challenges to the once-great US labor
movement; b) Organized labor has waged a massive and on the whole
successful campaign to expand its membership; c) Organized labor
has suffered at the hands of government by virtue of its stubborn
opposition to U.S. foreign policy; d) so-called “globalization”
has actually enhanced the power, influence, and membership totals of US
industrial unions.
Name:_______________
1._______
2.________
3.________
4.________
5.________
6.________
7.________
8.________
9.________
10.________