US Labor Rebellions and the Rise of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO)

Police Harassment ◽

The Right ◽

American Civil Liberties Union

This epilogue shows that Hague v. CIO had a legacy more complex than its reputation as a speech rights victory for workers and others over dictatorial city boss Frank Hague under the Bill of Rights. The American Civil Liberties Union and renamed Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) immediately split over the decision’s ramifications. Moreover, while the ruling enlarged constitutional protection for the right of public assembly to the benefit of Jehovah’s Witnesses, civil rights demonstrators, and others, it did little to enhance picketing and other “labor speech,” or to shield union organizers from police harassment. And while the decision freed the CIO to organize in Jersey City, it did not destroy Mayor Hague, who accommodated CIO unions and was ousted later due to city politics.

A Labor-Liberal Constellation

The Rise of Political Action Committees ◽

10.1093/oso/9780190075514.003.0007 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 168-196

Author(s):

Emily J. Charnock

Keyword(s):

Political Education ◽

National Committee ◽

Labor Organizations ◽

American Federation ◽

Liberal Democrats ◽

Democratic Action

This chapter traces the initial diffusion of the PAC concept from the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) to other labor organizations, including the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and liberal ideological groups. Though the AFL had previously opposed the CIO’s partisan electoral strategy and the formation of P.A.C., it came to emulate both following passage of the Taft-Hartley Act by a Republican Congress in 1947, forming Labor’s League for Political Education (LLPE) to engage in elections. That same year, two avowedly “liberal” groups were created to bolster the anti-Communist Left and champion liberal Democrats: the Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) and the National Committee for an Effective Congress (NCEC). The chapter traces the intertwined electoral efforts and tactical innovations of these liberal and labor organizations through the AFL-CIO merger in 1955, the subsequent creation of their joint PAC, the Committee on Political Education (COPE), and the latter’s activities in the 1956 elections.

The Congress of Industrial Organizations: Left, Right, and Center

Left Out ◽

10.1017/cbo9780511499395.002 ◽

2002 ◽

pp. 1-23

Keyword(s):

Business Unionism and Rank-and-File Unionism at the Turn of the Millennium

10.5406/illinois/9780252036378.003.0002 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Dana L. Cloud

Keyword(s):

Economic Crisis ◽

Labor Movement ◽

Turn Of The Millennium ◽

Similar Transformation ◽

Union Movement ◽

Union Leadership ◽

Labor Institutions ◽

American Union

This chapter introduces the arguments of the book in the context of a summary of the critique of traditional American union leadership as pro-business and dangerously invested in partnerships with management. First, it chronicles the two waves of the American union movement, telling the story of the rise of democratic unionism with the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) and its subsequent decline in the postwar years. It then provides some examples from the 1990s and 2000s of instances in which conservative unions led workers to defeats, primarily because of the failure to prioritize rank-and-file action in favor of more administrative, legalistic, and consumer-oriented strategies. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the changing situation of labor today. It argues that that the story of the rise of the CIO provides an inspiring model of the birth of a fighting labor movement out of a period of fragmentation, exclusivity, and weakness in existing labor institutions. It further suggests that present conditions of economic crisis and the stirrings of a new militancy are ripe for a similar transformation.

Organizing the Sexual Division of Labor

10.5406/illinois/9780252040320.003.0003 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Ruth Milkman

Keyword(s):

Women Workers ◽

Division Of Labor ◽

Women's Labor ◽

American Federation ◽

Sexual Division ◽

Job Segregation ◽

Sexual Division Of Labor

This chapter examines the effects of union organization on women workers and sexual division of labor, focusing on the 1930s and 1940s along with earlier developments in U.S. women's labor history. It draws on feminist scholarship that argued that labor unions' efforts to exclude women from membership had helped to consolidate patterns of job segregation by gender in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. After reviewing theories of occupational segregation by sex, especially with regards to the role of unions in the formation of labor-market boundaries between “women's work” and “men's work,” the chapter discusses the ways that the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations (initially called Committe for Industrial Organization) contributed to the sexual division of labor. It argues that industrial unions had the opportunity to challenge job segregation by sex during the 1930s and 1940s, but instead helped consolidate it. In both periods, the labor movement showed litte interest in recruiting women into its ranks.

Able and Militant Fighters for Workers

10.5406/illinois/9780252039492.003.0004 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Robert Bussel

Keyword(s):

Working Class ◽

Union Organizing ◽

Textile Workers ◽

Transport Service ◽

Shared Experience ◽

Service Employees ◽

American Federation ◽

American Federation Of Teachers ◽

This chapter examines how their time in Chicago led Harold Gibbons and Ernest Calloway to the shared experience of industrial union organizing and reinforced their faith in the potential of working-class mobilization. It begins with an account of the Memorial Day Massacre in 1937 and how Chicago provided Calloway with his first opportunity to exercise leadership in a union setting. It then considers Gibbons's involvement in Chicago's labor community as member of American Federation of Teachers Local 346 as well as his role in helping Chicago workers organize under the banner of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). It also discusses Gibbons's work as an organizer for the Textile Workers Organizing Committee (TWOC) and looks at two men who played instrumental roles in shaping Calloway's career: Willard Townsend and John Yancey. Finally, it describes Calloway's involvement with the United Transport Service Employees of America (formerly International Brotherhood of Red Caps), during which he also began to articulate a concept of working-class citizenship.

Sewing the Fabric of Statehood

10.5622/illinois/9780252041464.001.0001 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Adam M. Howard

Keyword(s):

Foreign Policy ◽

Jewish History ◽

Jewish State ◽

Cultural Centers ◽

American Federation ◽

Economic Aid ◽

American Labor

This book explores the untold story of how three influential garment unions worked with the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) in support of a new Jewish state. It reveals a coalition at work on multiple fronts. Sustained efforts convinced the AFL and CIO to support Jewish development in Palestine through land purchases for Jewish workers and encouraged the construction of trade schools and cultural centers. Other activists, meanwhile, directed massive economic aid to Histadrut, the General Federation of Jewish Workers in Palestine, or pressured the British and American governments to support the Jews in Palestine and later, recognize Israel’s independence. Ultimately, these efforts led American labor to forge its own foreign policy--and reshape both the postwar world and Jewish history.

Murray, Philip, (25 May 1886–9 Nov. 1952), Medal of Merit (US); President: Congress of Industrial Organizations since 1940; United Steelworkers of America since 1942

10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.u241137 ◽

2007 ◽

Keyword(s):

Lewis, John Llewellyn, (12 Feb. 1880–11 June 1969), American labour executive; President of United Mine Workers of America, 1920–60, resigned; President Emeritus since 1960; former President of Congress of Industrial Organizations

10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.u57515 ◽

2007 ◽

Keyword(s):

United Mine Workers ◽

United Mine ◽

Mine Workers

Le rôle social des syndicats aux États-Unis

Relations industrielles ◽

10.7202/1021401ar ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 18 (3) ◽

pp. 363-385

Author(s):

Leon Dale

Keyword(s):

New Jersey ◽

Atlantic City ◽

Executive Council ◽

American Federation ◽

Sommaire « L'établissement de l'AFL-CIO a stimulé le développement du programme syndical de service à la communauté et fut la cause d'une participation plus active des syndicats dans les affaires de la communauté. » Report of the Executive Council of the AFL-CIO, Second Convention, Atlantic City, New Jersey, December 5, 1957, American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, p. 287.