Communism and the Labor Movement

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Randi Storch
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Labor Movement ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Local Level ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
Congress Of Industrial Organizations ◽  
Union Movement ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
American Trade

Communist activists took a strong interest in American trade unions from the 1920s through the 1950s and played an important role in shaping the nature of the American union movement. Initial communist trade union activism drew upon radical labor traditions that preceded the formation of the American Communist Party (CPUSA). Early communist trade unionists experimented with different types of structures to organize unorganized workers. They also struggled with international communist factionalism. Communist trade unionists were most effective during the Great Depression and World War II. In those years, communist activists helped build the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) and bring industrial unionism to previously unorganized workers. Throughout the history of communist involvement in the US labor movement, international communist policy guided general organizing strategies. Shifts in international policy, such as the announcement of a Soviet non-aggression pact with Germany, proved politically difficult to navigate on the local level. Yet, Left-led unions proved to be more democratically run and focused on racial and gender equality than many of those without communist influence. Their leadership supported social justice and militant action. The Cold War years witnessed CIO purges of Left-led unions and federal investigations and arrests of communist trade unionists. Repression from both within and without the labor movement as well as the CPUSA’s own internal policy battles ultimately ended communist trade unionists’ widespread influence on American trade unions.

The Gay South

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jerry Watkins
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Government Officials ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
Class Differences ◽  
Gay History ◽  
Straight Line ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Gender Presentation ◽  
The Cold War

Regional variation, race, gender presentation, and class differences mean that there are many “Gay Souths.” Same-sex desire has been a feature of the human experience since the beginning, but the meanings, expressions, and ability to organize one’s life around desire have shifted profoundly since the invention of sexuality in the mid-19th century. World War II represented a key transition in gay history, as it gave many people a language for their desires. During the Cold War, government officials elided sex, race, and gender transgression with subversion and punished accordingly by state committees. These forces profoundly shaped gay social life, and rather than a straight line from closet to liberation, gays in the South have meandered. Movement rather than stasis, circulation rather than congregation, and the local rather than the stranger as well as creative uses of space and place mean that the gay South is distinctive, though not wholly unique, from the rest of the country.

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

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dana L. Cloud
Keyword(s):  
Economic Crisis ◽  
Labor Movement ◽  
Turn Of The Millennium ◽  
Similar Transformation ◽  
Congress Of Industrial Organizations ◽  
Union Movement ◽  
Industrial Organizations ◽  
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.

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.

Palestinian Trade Unions

2000 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 66-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nina Sovich
Keyword(s):  
Trade Union ◽  
Labor Movement ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Palestinian Authority ◽  
National Politics ◽  
Trade Union Movement ◽  
Union Movement

In 1994, the Palestinian labor movement, crippled by years of factionalism and Israeli oppression, expected that the arrival of the Palestinian Authority would enable it to reorient its priorities from national politics to workers' rights. This article examines the trajectory of the trade union movement since Oslo and particularly the reasons for its ongoing factionalism and failure to meet its objectives.

Conclusion

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher P. Loss
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
The State ◽  
Democratic Citizenship ◽  
Economic Downturn ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
Personal Politics ◽  
The Government ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Cold War

This chapter offers an overview of the state of higher education in an age of diversity. Without the Great Depression, World War II, and the Cold War to thicken the relationship between the state and higher education, a rightward political shift commenced during the economic downturn of the 1970s. Ideological differences dating back to the campus turmoil of the 1960s, combined with real financial concerns, helped to drive a wedge between the government and higher education. Ultimately, the drift toward “privatization” in the final two decades of the twentieth century readjusted higher education's role as a mediator between citizens and the state once again—changing how students paid for college and moving students closer to a privatized conception of democratic citizenship inextricably tied to the “personal politics” of identity.

The Story Goes On

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Czyżewska
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Tourism Industry ◽  
Berlin Wall ◽  
Oil Boom ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
Hospitality And Tourism Industry ◽  
The Cold War

The shooting star - Hilton Hotels have seen it all, oil boom in Texas, prohibition, the Great Depression, World War II, the Cold War, the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the landing on the Moon, the birth of digital age and expansion of social media, and many other events which have contributed not only to the development of business but, actually, influenced people’s lives the world over. It has been the aim of this book to tell the stories of a handful of properties which had to overcome various challenges on the path to the internationalisation of this American company. In all cases these are actually stories of people, those who created the Hilton Hotels, who made it expand, or sometimes, those who made it lose. Stories of struggle, success or defeat are not unique to Hilton, but some of the ways in which Hilton navigated through these challenges are, undeniably, worth remembering. This final chapter focuses on the key solutions employed by Hilton and its people to navigate the stormy waters of international business in the 20th Century. Historical events cannot, however, be studied in isolation from the wider socio-cultural context in which they unravelled, and the internationalisation of Hilton Hotels is no different in this respect. We have looked at the development of some of the most iconic of Hilton’s properties in this company’s early expansion and the destinations which hosted these ‘little Americas’ on their land. Yet, it is crucial to also take into consideration the wider changes which contributed to the internationalisation of other companies in the first half of the 20th Century, hospitality and tourism industry in particular.

Sociological Discourses on Color, Class, and Gender, from Depression to World War II

Brown Beauty ◽  
2018 ◽  
pp. 225-260
Author(s):  
Laila Haidarali
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Coming Of Age ◽  
African American Youth ◽  
Black Belt ◽  
Growing Up ◽  
World War ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
Color Class ◽  
African America ◽  
And Gender

This chapter daws on three published sociological works: Franklin E. Frazier’s, Negro Youth at the Crossways (1940), Charles S. Johnson’s, Growing Up in the Black Belt (1941), and Charles H. Parrish’s, Color Names and Color Notions (1946). These sociological views on color showed brown identity as an emergent social ideal and image of African America, and in varying degrees drew crucial connections of brownness to values associated with an ascendant middle-class status. These sociologists are presented as racial liberals who offered concrete and critical assessments of the rising idealization of brown complexions among African American youth coming of age between the Great Depression and World War II.

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.

scholarly journals Constructing Labour Regionalism in Europe and the Americas, 1920s–1970s

2012 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
Magaly Rodríguez García
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Trade Union ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
World War ◽  
Trade Union Movement ◽  
Union Movement ◽  
Scant Attention ◽  
Common Interests ◽  
Push And Pull ◽  
Comparative Examination

AbstractThis article provides an analysis of the construction of labour regionalism between the 1920s and 1970s. By means of a comparative examination of the supranational labour structures in Europe and the Americas prior to World War II and of the decentralized structure of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), I attempt to defend the argument that regionalism was a labour leaders' construct that responded to three issues: the quest for power among the largest trade-union organizations within the international trade-union movement; mutual distrust between labour leaders of large, middle-sized, and small unions from different regions; and (real or imaginary) common interests among labour leaders from the same region. These push-and-pull factors led to the construction of regional labour identifications that emphasized “otherness” in the world of international labour. A regional labour identity was intended to supplement, not undermine, national identity. As such, this study fills a lacuna in the scholarly literature on international relations and labour internationalism, which has given only scant attention to the regional level of international labour organization.

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