Autoworkers and Their Unions

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Clark
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Good Reason ◽  
The United States ◽  
Economic Security ◽  
Productive Efficiency ◽  
United Auto Workers ◽  
Auto Workers ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Auto Plants ◽  
Wage Increases

Since the introduction of “Fordism” in the early 1910s, which emphasized technological improvements and maximizing productive efficiency, US autoworkers have struggled with repetitive, exhausting, often dangerous jobs. Yet beginning with Ford’s Five Dollar Day, introduced in 1914, auto jobs have also provided higher pay than most other wage work, attracting hundreds of thousands of people, especially to Detroit, Michigan, through the 1920s, and again from World War II until the mid-1950s. Successful unionization campaigns by the United Auto Workers (UAW) in the 1930s and early 1940s resulted in contracts that guaranteed particular wage increases, reduced the power of foremen, and created a process for resolving workplace conflicts. In the late 1940s and early 1950s UAW president Walter Reuther negotiated generous medical benefits and pensions for autoworkers. The volatility of the auto industry, however, often brought layoffs that undermined economic security. By the 1950s overproduction and automation contributed heavily to instability for autoworkers. The UAW officially supported racial and gender equality, but realities in auto plants and the makeup of union leadership often belied those principles. Beginning in the 1970s US autoworkers faced disruptions caused by high oil prices, foreign competition, and outsourcing to Mexico. Contract concessions at unionized plants began in the late 1970s and continued into the 2000s. By the end of the 20th century, many American autoworkers did not belong to the UAW because they were employed by foreign automakers, who built factories in the United States and successfully opposed unionization. For good reason, autoworkers who survived the industry’s turbulence and were able to retire with guaranteed pensions and medical care look back fondly on all that they gained from working in the industry under UAW contracts. Countless others left auto work permanently and often reluctantly in periodic massive layoffs and the continuous loss of jobs from automation.

Disruption in Detroit

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel J Clark
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
White Women ◽  
Cold Weather ◽  
United Auto Workers ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
Auto Workers ◽  
Hot Weather ◽  
Job Instability ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Almost All

It is conventional wisdom that because of lucrative contracts negotiated by the United Auto Workers (UAW) under Walter Reuther's leadership, most autoworkers in the U.S. enjoyed steady work, increasing wages, and improved benefits in the postwar boom following World War II. In short, autoworkers entered the middle class. In contrast, this book argues that for Detroit autoworkers there was no postwar boom. Instead, the years from 1945 to 1960 were dominated by job instability and economic insecurity. This argument is based largely on oral history interviews and research in local newspapers, which covered the auto industry extensively. Conditions were worse for African Americans and white women, but almost all autoworkers experienced precarious, often dire circumstances. Recessions, automation, decentralization, and the collapse of independent automakers in Detroit are part of the story, but materials shortages, steel, coal, and copper strikes, parts supplier strikes, wildcat strikes, overproduction (especially in 1955), hot weather, cold weather, plant explosions, age, race, and gender workplace discrimination, and the inability of autoworkers to afford new cars contributed to instability and insecurity. Hardly anyone in the 1950s—whether ordinary autoworkers, union leaders, auto company executives, business analysts, or local shopkeepers—thought that the decade was marked by steady work, improving wages, or anything resembling predictable income for autoworkers.

New Research in Women's Labor HistoryWork Engendered: Toward a New History of American Labor. Ava BaronDishing It out: Waitresses and Their Unions in the Twentieth Century. Dorothy Sue CobbleSons and Daughters of Labor: Class and Clerical Work in Turn-of-the-Century Pittsburgh. Ileen A. DeVaultCommunity of Suffering and Struggle: Women, Men, and the Labor Movement in Minneapolis, 1915-1945. Elizabeth FaueThe Souls of the Skyscraper: Female Clerical Workers in Chicago, 1870-1930. Lisa M. FineFeminism in the Labor Movement: Women and the United Auto Workers, 1935-1975. Nancy F. GabinDaughters of the Shtetl: Life and Labor in the Immigrant Generation. Susan A. GlennBlack Women in White: Racial Conflict and Cooperation in the Nursing Profession, 1890-1950. Darlene Clark HineFleeting Opportunities: Women Shipyard Workers in Portland and Vancouver during World War II and Reconversion. Amy KesselmanBlackboard Unions: The AFT and the NEA, 1900-1980. Marjorie MurphyLabor's Flaming Youth: Telephone Operators and Worker Militancy, 1878-1923. Stephen H. NorwoodDomesticity and Dirt: Housewives and Domestic Servants in the United States, 1920-1945. Phyllis Palmer

Signs ◽  
1993 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 376-388
Author(s):  
Ruth Milkman
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Labor Movement ◽  
The United States ◽  
United Auto Workers ◽  
Clerical Workers ◽  
Auto Workers ◽  
Domestic Servants ◽  
History Of ◽  
Telephone Operators ◽  
New Research

Asian and Asian American Women in the United States before World War II

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shirley Hune
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Cultural Differences ◽  
Asian American ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Asian Women ◽  
Asian American Women ◽  
American Women ◽  
And Gender

Asian women, the immigrant generation, entered Hawai’i, when it was a kingdom and subsequently a US territory, and the Western US continent, from the 1840s to the 1930s as part of a global movement of people escaping imperial wars, colonialism, and homeland disorder. Most were wives or picture brides from China, Japan, Korea, the Philippines, and South Asia, joining menfolk who worked overseas to escape poverty and strife. Women also arrived independently; some on the East Coast. US immigration laws restricting the entry of Asian male laborers also limited Asian women. Asian women were critical for establishing Asian American families and ensuring such households’ survival and social mobility. They worked on plantations, in agricultural fields and canneries, as domestics and seamstresses, and helped operate family businesses, while doing housework, raising children, and navigating cultural differences. Their activities gave women more power in their families than by tradition and shifted gender roles toward more egalitarian households. Women’s organizations, and women’s leadership, ideas, and skills contributed to ethnic community formation. Second generation (US-born) Asian American women grew up in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and negotiated generational as well as cultural differences. Some were mixed race, namely, biracial or multiracial. Denied participation in many aspects of American youth culture, they formed ethnic-based clubs and organizations and held social activities that mirrored mainstream society. Some attended college. A few broke new ground professionally. Asian and Asian American women were diverse in national origin, class, and location. Both generations faced race and gender boundaries in education, employment, and public spaces, and they were active in civic affairs to improve their lives and their communities’ well-being. Across America, they marched, made speeches, and raised funds to free their homelands from foreign occupation and fought for racial and gender equality in the courts, workplaces, and elsewhere.

On Gender, Labor, and Inequality

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth Milkman
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Women Workers ◽  
Great Depression ◽  
The United States ◽  
Gender Inequalities ◽  
Women's Labor ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The Impact

The author's groundbreaking research in women's labor history has contributed important perspectives on work and unionism in the United States. This book presents four decades of the author's essential writings, tracing the parallel evolutions of her ideas and the field she helped define. The book's introduction frames a career-spanning scholarly project: the interrogation of historical and contemporary intersections of class and gender inequalities in the workplace, and the efforts to challenge those inequalities. Early chapters focus on the author's pioneering work on women's labor during the Great Depression and the World War II years. The book's second half turns to the past fifty years, a period that saw a dramatic decline in gender inequality even as growing class imbalances created greater-than-ever class disparity among women. The book concludes with a previously unpublished essay comparing the impact of the Great Depression and the Great Recession on women workers.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charissa J. Threat
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Vietnam War ◽  
Gender Discrimination ◽  
The United States ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
Army Nurse Corps ◽  
Agents Of Change ◽  
Military Nursing ◽  
And Gender

This book examines the battles over race and gender discrimination and social justice by linking the civil rights story of the Army Nurse Corps (ANC) to critical events in the United States between World War II and the Vietnam War. Using the microcosm of military nursing, it considers how agents of change became defenders of exclusionary practices when some of the same women who challenged their exclusion from the military or civilian nursing profession, or those who had gained considerable status within the profession, were unwilling to extend the opportunities to men who sought out military nursing careers. The book also explores the connection between the campaigns to integrate the ANC and the domestic and international anxieties during the Cold War by suggesting that anticommunism both hindered and supported the prospect for gender and race equality within the ANC and, by extension, civilian society.

scholarly journals Profit Sharing and Auto Workers' Earning: The United States vs Canada

2005 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 515-530 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harry C. Katz ◽  
Noah M. Meltz
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Profit Sharing ◽  
General Motors ◽  
Auto Workers ◽  
Improvement Factor ◽  
Wage Increases ◽  
The U.S

In response to the 1981-82 recession and demands for concessions the auto workers in the United States (UAW) accepted contracts that shifted away from the three decades-old annual improvement factor and included profit sharing plans. In Canada the Canadian branch of the UAW negotiated wage increases that differed from those in the U.S. and did not include profit sharing. Over the period 1982 to 1989, in terms of direct monetary earnings alone, American auto workers received less than their Canadian counterparts. This paper examines the sources of the differences in earnings for each of General Motors, Ford and Chrysler.

Dialogue without Words

2019 ◽  
pp. 247-278
Author(s):  
Jennifer DeLapp-Birkett
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Good Reason ◽  
The United States ◽  
Red Scare ◽  
World War ◽  
Film Score ◽  
Hollywood Film ◽  
Piano Quartet ◽  
Single Piece ◽  
The Cold War

In Jennifer DeLapp-Birkett’s analysis, the “identities and dichotomies” of her title concern a single piece of music, Aaron Copland's Piano Quartet (1950) but also a number of extramusical issues that preoccupied the composer at the time. She places Copland’s work, including his Hollywood film score for “The Heiress” and the efforts of his contemporaries (such as Schoenberg, Virgil Thomson), within the complex political landscape post-World War II, the Red Scare in the United States, and the Cold War. Several incidents in Copland’s career circa 1950 indicate that he, with good reason, felt vulnerable to the forces of reaction at work. DeLapp-Birkett demonstrates conclusively that in his public statements and in his compositional development Copland was responding consciously to the pressures from a variety of sources.

Exiles in Mexico

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pablo Yankelevich
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Latin American ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Asylum ◽  
Refugee Status ◽  
Us Government ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Political Persecution

In the Latin American milieu, Mexico stands out as a host nation for exiles. It is somewhat paradoxical that a country with very restrictive migration policies was always willing to receive victims of political persecution, and later expanded this behavior to include victims of ethnic, religious, and gender persecution, generalized violence, and natural disasters. Explaining this paradox involves considering the transformations that the 1910 Revolution introduced into Mexico’s domestic and international politics and how these transformations impacted abroad, above all in the Latin American space, projecting the idea of a nation committed to the construction of political order and just and democratic societies. Political asylum and the Refugee Status Determination are the legal instruments by which Mexico has welcomed foreigners in conditions of extreme vulnerability. The widespread use of these instruments forged the image of Mexico as a nation of exiles. Many victims of persecution entered the country under the protection provided by the instruments of political asylum and refugee status; undoubtedly, many more did so by circumventing migratory obstacles thanks to generous governmental conduct in situations of political persecution. A journey through the most important experiences of exiles in Mexico must start with the first Latin American exiles persecuted by dictatorial regimes in the 1920s, before turning to the case of the Spanish Republicans after the Civil War in the late 1930s, and then immediately incorporating European victims of Nazism during World War II. During the Cold War a second stage of exile began with the arrival of Americans persecuted by McCarthyism in the United States, and later by the influx of thousands of Latin Americans victims of new military dictatorships. This cycle ended at the beginning of the 1980s when large contingents of Guatemalans crossed the border with Mexico to protect themselves from a war of extermination launched by the army of that country. The size and the social composition of this exile obliged Mexico to draft policies for the reception of victims of persecution that led to adjustments in national legislation and strategies for collaboration with the United Nations. In the final decades of the 20th century, the redemocratization processes in Latin America led to a marked decrease in the number of victims of political persecution. Nevertheless, since the beginning of the 21st century Mexico has faced new challenges, no longer in terms of political asylum but in terms of refuge. The increasing flows of foreign migrants who, irregularly, transit through Mexican territory to reach the border with the United States and the migration enforcement policies implemented by the US government have generated a considerable increase in requests for refugee status in Mexico. This phenomenon, unprecedented in the history of the reception of victims of persecution, leaves Mexico facing an enormous challenge in terms of humanitarian protection for foreigners who flee their countries to preserve their freedom and protect their lives.

Passing the Baton

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cat M. Ariail
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Black Women ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
The United States ◽  
Sporting Events ◽  
Gender Expectations ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
And Gender

In the post–World War II period, nations and territories used international sport to codify and communicate their ideal citizenries. For the United States, black women who competed in track and field complicated these efforts. This book analyzes the ideological influence of black women track stars, examining how they destabilized dominant ideas about race, gender, sexuality, and national identity. The strivings and successes of black American track women, such as Alice Coachman, Mae Faggs, and Wilma Rudolph, at the Olympic Games and other international sporting events from 1948 to 1962 repeatedly forced white and black sport cultures in the United States to wrestle with the meaning of black women’s athleticism. Both white and black sport cultures struggled to fit black women athletes into their respective visions for the postwar American nation, reflecting and reinforcing how the Cold War, civil rights movement, and their intersection encouraged broader reconfigurations of the racial, gender, and sexual associations of ideal American identity. Ultimately, these American sport cultures marshaled racialized gender expectations to contain the threat that black women track stars embodied, interpreting and reinterpreting the meaning of their athletic efforts in ways that bolstered established hierarchies of race and gender.

B. J. Widick

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nelson Lichtenstein
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
World War ◽  
United Auto Workers ◽  
Auto Workers ◽  
Post World War Ii ◽  
American Labor ◽  
Industrial Unions

This chapter presents a portrait of Branko J. Widick, who died on June 28, 2008, at the age of ninety-seven. He was not a well-known figure in the annals of American labor and its committed partisans. However, he deserves much recognition and admiration because Widick was not only an activist at the very epicenter of the great strikes that launched the industrial unions in the 1930s, but he also remained a radical and an acutely honest observer throughout those postwar decades when the great organizations he had helped to build entered an era of stagnation and decline. Widick was among those men of the left, including the influential group who were influenced by Shachtman's “third camp” socialism, for whom the post-World War II United Auto Workers (UAW) became the institution into which they poured their passion, intellect, and organizational energies.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document