Why Shouldn't a Union Man Be a Union Man? The ILGWU and FOUR

1995 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-198 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Renshaw
Keyword(s):  
White Male ◽  
The United States ◽  
Industrial Complex ◽  
Industrial Democracy ◽  
American Federation Of Labor ◽  
General Process ◽  
American Federation ◽  
Military Industrial Complex ◽  
Congress Of Industrial Organizations ◽  
Industrial Organizations

Historians generally agree that in the 1950s and 1960s organized labour in the United States had become thoroughly bureaucratized. This is often explained as part of a general process of growth and maturity. In their lean, radical youth in the 1930s, those American unions which had launched the Congress of Industrial Organizations had aimed at two targets: to organize and bargain collectively, as promised by the 1935 National Labor Relations Act; and then to use this power to press for wider industrial democracy and social reform. By the time the CIO was reunited with the American Federation of Labor in 1955, this picture had been substantially changed. Increasingly labour cooperated with management and had become part of the white, male, liberal corporate power structure which ran the American capitalist industrial and political system. This military-industrial complex was the indispensable basis, not just for American prosperity but the whole Cold War strategy of containment of communism through the Pax Americana.

A Labor-Liberal Constellation

2020 ◽  
pp. 168-196
Author(s):  
Emily J. Charnock
Keyword(s):  
Political Education ◽  
National Committee ◽  
American Federation Of Labor ◽  
Labor Organizations ◽  
American Federation ◽  
Liberal Democrats ◽  
Congress Of Industrial Organizations ◽  
Industrial Organizations ◽  
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.

Organizing the Sexual Division of Labor

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth Milkman
Keyword(s):  
Women Workers ◽  
Division Of Labor ◽  
Women's Labor ◽  
American Federation Of Labor ◽  
American Federation ◽  
Sexual Division ◽  
Congress Of Industrial Organizations ◽  
Industrial Organizations ◽  
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.

Sewing the Fabric of Statehood

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam M. Howard
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Jewish History ◽  
Jewish State ◽  
American Federation Of Labor ◽  
Cultural Centers ◽  
American Federation ◽  
Congress Of Industrial Organizations ◽  
Industrial Organizations ◽  
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.

scholarly journals Le rôle social des syndicats aux États-Unis

2014 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 363-385
Author(s):  
Leon Dale
Keyword(s):  
New Jersey ◽  
Atlantic City ◽  
Executive Council ◽  
American Federation Of Labor ◽  
American Federation ◽  
Congress Of Industrial Organizations ◽  
Industrial Organizations

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.

The Knights of Labor

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Hild
Keyword(s):  
Trade Unions ◽  
The United States ◽  
Industrial Workers ◽  
Skilled Workers ◽  
Knights Of Labor ◽  
American Federation ◽  
Congress Of Industrial Organizations ◽  
Industrial Organizations ◽  
American Capitalism ◽  
Railway System

Founded in Philadelphia in 1869, the Noble and Holy Order of the Knights of Labor became the largest and most powerful labor organization that had ever existed in the United States by the mid-1880s. Recruiting men and women of nearly all occupations and all races (except Chinese), the Knights tried to reform American capitalism and politics in ways that would curb the growing economic and political abuses and excesses of the Gilded Age. Leaders of the organization viewed strikes as harmful to workers and employers alike, especially after the Great Railroad Strike of 1877, but a series of railroad strikes in 1884 and 1885 caused the Knights’ membership rolls to reach a peak of at least 700,000 in 1886. The heyday of the Knights of Labor proved brief though. Two major events in May 1886, the Haymarket riot in Chicago and the failure of a strike against Jay Gould’s Southwestern Railway system, began a series of setbacks that caused the organization to decline about as rapidly as it had arisen. By 1893, membership dropped below 100,000, and the Knights’ leaders aligned the organization with the farmers’ movement and the Populist Party. The Knights increasingly became a rural organization, as urban skilled and semi-skilled workers joined trade unions affiliated with the American Federation of Labor (AFL). The AFL, however, proved less inclusive and egalitarian than the Knights of Labor, although some of the latter’s ideals would be carried on by later organizations such as the Industrial Workers of the World and the Congress of Industrial Organizations.

The Racial Politics of Progressive Americanism: New Deal Liberalism and the Subordination of Black Workers in the UAW

2005 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-97 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Williams
Keyword(s):  
New Deal ◽  
Racial Politics ◽  
Foreign Country ◽  
General Motors ◽  
Black Workers ◽  
American Federation Of Labor ◽  
American Federation ◽  
Congress Of Industrial Organizations ◽  
Industrial Organizations ◽  
United Automobile Workers

In February 1937, members of the United Automobile Workers (UAW) celebrated their pioneering victory over General Motors by waving American flags as they marched out of Fisher Body and paraded through the streets of Flint, Michigan. Later that year, as the UAW turned to organizing Ford's massive River Rouge plant, the Ford edition of the United Automobile Worker described the complex as a foreign country and called on workers to “win this for America” and “win the war for democracy in River Rouge!” When a successful strike finally led to union recognition and an NLRB election in 1941, the UAW urged Rouge workers to “keep faith with America” and its greatest leaders, Washington, Lincoln, and Franklin D. Roosevelt, by voting for the inclusive unionism of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) over the un-American alternative of the American Federation of Labor (AFL).

scholarly journals A Alca e as novas alianças sindicais Norte-Sul

2001 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 168-185 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yves Chaloult ◽  
Wilson Fernández
Keyword(s):  
American Federation Of Labor ◽  
American Federation ◽  
Congress Of Industrial Organizations ◽  
Industrial Organizations ◽  
America Latina

Apoiado em entrevista com dirigente sindical e em artigos publicados em jornais de Washington (EUA), além de outras fontes bibliográficas, o texto examina os rumos que as organizações da sociedade civil das Américas, em particular as centrais sindicais, vêm trilhando nos últimos anos. Segundo enfoca, para defender os trabalhadores de seu país das ameaças ao trabalho advindas com a globalização, o regionalismo econômico - em especial a Alca - e o avanço tecnológico, a central norte-americana American Federation of Labor - Congress of Industrial Organizations mudou radicalmente suas estratégias. Ela agora, em vez de tentar barrar os acordos de livre comércio, tem procurado limitar a autonomia governamental na negociação dos mesmos. Ao mesmo tempo, vem buscando uma maior articulação com as centrais da América Latina. Essa aproximação, ao que parece, está dando origem a um novo e promissor "internacionalismo sindical".

Moving On

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sonja D. Williams
Keyword(s):  
Radio Station ◽  
Underground Railroad ◽  
American Federation Of Labor ◽  
American Federation ◽  
Congress Of Industrial Organizations ◽  
Industrial Organizations ◽  
Parent Organization ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Gathering Place ◽  
Politically Active

This chapter focuses on Richard Durham's efforts to find a new home for Destination Freedom once it ended its run at NBC. Perhaps inspired by his involvement with the Du Bois Theater Guild, Durham planned on writing “a major play” about Underground Railroad conductor Harriet Tubman. When NBC and the WMAQ radio station announced that they were reviving Durham's Destination Freedom series without his consent or input, Durham filed a lawsuit. Also during this time, his and Clarice's small apartment occasionally served as a gathering place for his politically active friends, including members of the United Packinghouse Workers of America (UPWA). In the UPWA's Anti-Discrimination Department, Durham found an outlet for his crusading desire to eradicate inequality and promote justice. He also championed women's rights issues. When the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), UPWA's parent organization, engaged in merger negotiations with the American Federation of Labor (AFL), Durham was able to set up the election of several black officials to the merged leadership.

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