The Vanguard

2020 ◽  
pp. 35-86
Author(s):  
Michael Goldfield
Keyword(s):  
Labor Movement ◽  
Racial Equality ◽  
Union Organizing ◽  
The South ◽  
Coal Miners ◽  
Coal Miner ◽  
Public Commitment ◽  
Ability And Willingness ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Recovery Act

Chapter 2 examines coal miners during the 1930s through the 1950s, when coal was a central industry both for the U.S. economy and for the growth of industrial unionism. It highlights the vanguard role they played in the labor movement in general and in society at large, especially in the South. It also examines their solidarity and their ability and willingness to help workers in virtually every other industry. They were one of the few groups in the old AFL that had a public commitment to racial equality and a good record on that score. The chapter exposes the myth—accepted by the vast majority of analysts—that coal miner union organizing was facilitated by governmental legislation, especially Section 7(a) of the National Industrial Recovery Act.

Going South: How Southern Organizing Will Determine the Future of the Labor Movement

2020 ◽  
pp. 191-205
Author(s):  
MaryBe McMillan
Keyword(s):  
Labor Movement ◽  
Political Influence ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
The South ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
Right To Work ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
Voter Suppression ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The U.S

This chapter reflects on the challenges and opportunities of building workers' power in North Carolina. To change the political balance of the nation, this chapter argues, we must change the South, which is gaining in jobs, population, and political influence. Home to more than a third of the U.S. population, the region is larger than the Northeast and Midwest combined. Political representatives from the South disproportionately contribute to right-wing agendas, including right-to-work, low wages, and voter suppression. The chapter outlines essential strategies for organizing in the South, or in any right-to-work states with hostile political climates. First, start small and dream big; second, issues of race and gender equality must be addressed; third, unions must build strong locals and unite with community allies. Finally, the labor movement, including central labor councils and state federations, must build political power.

The Myth of Section 7(a): Worker Militancy, Progressive Labor Legislation, and the Coal Miners

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 49-65
Author(s):  
Michael Goldfield ◽  
Cody R. Melcher
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Data ◽  
Alternative Model ◽  
Causal Role ◽  
Union Organizing ◽  
Coal Miners ◽  
Union Growth ◽  
Labor Legislation ◽  
Wagner Act ◽  
Recovery Act

In this article, the authors look at the supposed causal role of progressive labor legislation on union organizing. As an extension of the Wagner Act debates of the late 1980s and early 1990s, the authors argue—contrary to the accepted wisdom of virtually all established scholarship—that “progressive” labor legislation is not generally the impetus for worker organization, a necessary prerequisite without which mass unionization would be impossible. Rather, this legislation is often consciously cooptive, with the explicit goal of diffusing worker militancy, denuding and undermining radical leadership while simultaneously placating popular discontent. The theoretical and methodological shortcomings of the former position are analyzed in the context of the passage of Section 7(a) of the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA). The authors argue that if the unionization of coal miners—the supposed primary beneficiaries of the stimulus attributed to the legislation—occurred prior to the passage of the NIRA, Section 7(a) could not have acted as a catalyst to unionization in the coalfields. The authors show, using archival and secondary accounts, that nearly all the nation’s coal miners were organized before the passage of the NIRA. In light of this empirical data, the authors propose an alternative model of union growth that rejects the methodological individualist assumptions that tacitly undergird the existing literature.

Assessment of risk factors for multifocal atherosclerosis in the workers of the main professions of coal enterprises in the South of Kuzbass

2020 ◽  
pp. 157-161
Author(s):  
E. S. Filimonov ◽  
O. Yu. Korotenko ◽  
O. A. Rumpel ◽  
O. N. Blazhina
Keyword(s):  
Risk Factors ◽  
Cardiovascular Diseases ◽  
Arterial Hypertension ◽  
Glycated Hemoglobin ◽  
Significant Risk ◽  
Coal Industry ◽  
Atherosclerotic Plaques ◽  
The South ◽  
Coal Miners ◽  
Coal Enterprises

Introduction. The problem of high mortality from cardiovascular diseases is caused, among other things, by asymptomatic atherosclerosis, which proceeds latently for a long time and manifests itself as a serious vascular catastrophe, which is of particular importance for people working at production facilities with difficult and dangerous working conditions.The aim of the study was to assess the risk factors for atherosclerosis and the state of the vascular wall in the workers of the main professions of coal enterprises in the South of Kuzbass.Material and methods. In total, the study included 384 people (men), of whom 266 were the workers in coal mines in the South of Kuzbass and 118 people who were not employed in the coal industry, aged 40 to 55 years. The diagnosis of atherosclerosis was carried out on the ultrasound system “Vivid E9” of the manufacturing company GE using a linear sensor for measuring the thickness of the intima-media complex and visualization of atherosclerotic plaques. To identify significant risk factors, anthropometric, anamnestic data, indices of lipid and carbohydrate metabolism, and the presence of arterial hypertension were studied.Results. Significant differences in the frequency of asymptomatic atherosclerosis in the form of an increase in intima-media thickness by more than 1 mm and / or the presence of atherosclerotic plaques in both groups were not found: 60.2% among the miners and 62.3% among non-coal mining workers (p=0.703); at the same time, the percentage of detection of atherosclerotic plaques in arteries was significantly lower among coal workers — 46.9% versus 60.5% among people in the comparison group (p=0.016). The common risk factors for all examined subjects were arterial hypertension and increased level of glycated hemoglobin; in turn, in coal miners additional risk factors were increased values of low density lipoproteins and waist-hip index, as well as burdened heredity for cardiovascular diseases, and among the individuals not employed in the coal industry it was smoking.Conclusions. The most significant risk factors for atherosclerosis in coal industry workers were arterial hypertension, raised values of glycated hemoglobin, low density lipoproteins and waist-hip index, as well as burdened heredity for cardiovascular diseases. Significant differences in the frequency of asymptomatic atherosclerosis in the form of an increase in the thickness of the intima-media complex of the main arteries and the presence of atherosclerotic plaques in both groups were not established, but the percentage of the detection of atherosclerotic plaques was lower among coal miners.The authors declare no conflict of interests.

SPECIES OF PROPERTY: THE AMERICAN PROPERTY-TAX UNIFORMITY CLAUSES RECONSIDERED

2001 ◽  
Vol 61 (4) ◽  
pp. 974-1008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robin L. Einhorn
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Economy ◽  
Property Tax ◽  
The United States ◽  
The South ◽  
State Constitutions ◽  
Uniform Property ◽  
The U.S

Economic historians have traced the origin of the uniform property tax in the United States to the insertion of uniformity clauses into state constitutions in the Northwest and to efforts to tax commercial wealth. This article shows that the tax was created by legislation in the Northeast and that the first constitutional clauses were adopted in the South to protect slaveholders. It is time for historians of the U.S. political economy to abandon the dated paradigms of the “progressive history” tradition.

Occupation, 1865–1877

2021 ◽  
pp. 627-645
Author(s):  
Andrew F. Lang
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Political Change ◽  
Political Power ◽  
New South ◽  
Social Conditions ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
The South ◽  
Military Forces ◽  
Economic Markets ◽  
The U.S

Restoring the Union and securing emancipation after the Civil War depended on the U.S. Army. But the symbolism of standing military forces operating at the domestic vanguard of social and political change hampered the army’s ability to conduct a widespread occupation. The success of Reconstruction (1865–1877) depended on the army integrating itself in unprecedented ways in political affairs, social conditions, and economic markets to forge a new South stable enough never again to threaten the Union’s survival, but not too centralized to appear coercive. Ultimately, the very institution that reintegrated the formerly rebellious states into their proper federal orbit was also regarded by White Northerners and Southerners as an unstable threat to democratic self-determination. Hampered by a consistent and rapid demobilization, the army could not wield the tools necessary to prevent former Confederates from regaining political power and “redeeming” the South into an eerie image of its prewar self.

The Changing Face of the Catholic South

2018 ◽  
pp. 177-200
Author(s):  
James Hudnut-Beumler
Keyword(s):  
Mississippi River ◽  
Central American ◽  
Third Wave ◽  
Roman Catholicism ◽  
The South ◽  
Southern States ◽  
River Valleys ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
Second Wave ◽  
The U.S

Of all European faiths transplanted to what became the U.S. southern states, Roman Catholicism came first. Southern Catholicism was mostly confined to the Atlantic and Gulf coasts and the Ohio and Mississippi river valleys, leading a Glenmary priest to dub the interior “No Priest Land.” This chapter depicts the Catholic filling of the southern interior in four waves: first, select immigrant towns were established like Cullman, Alabama in the 19th century, home to a Benedictine monastery; a second wave came in the early and mid-20th century with the Glenmary Home Missioners and a colorful nun named Mother Angelica, determined in different ways to evangelize and serve the South; the third wave came from rustbelt transplant Catholics moving south for jobs, especially with the auto industry in the 1980s forward; finally, the fourth and largest wave is composed of Hispanic Catholics helping making the South’s states the fastest growing in Hispanic population 2000-2010. This chapter features visits to two fast growing Hispanic congregations, one largely Mexican in ethnicity, the other pan-Central American. The principal emerging religious feature for Catholicism in the South that it has quickly become the most immigrant-embracing form of Christianity in the region.

Workers in Transition

2020 ◽  
pp. 45-75
Author(s):  
Donald W. Rogers
Keyword(s):  
Industrial Organization ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Working Class ◽  
New Deal ◽  
Labor Movement ◽  
Popular Front ◽  
American Federation Of Labor ◽  
Labor Laws ◽  
American Federation ◽  
The U.S

This chapter argues that change in the U.S. labor movement from American Federation of Labor (AFL) craft unionism to Committee for Industrial Organization (CIO) industrial unionism largely lay behind Jersey City’s opposition to the CIO in 1937, not just Mayor Hague’s supposed antilabor inclinations. Hague aligned with AFL unions, but Depression and New Deal labor laws weakened them, while boosting CIO industrial unionism and its appeal to suffering Jersey manufacturing workers, including women and African Americans. Moreover, the CIO’s class-conscious culture of “working-class Americanism” clashed with Hague’s ethnicity-based rhetoric of “Patriotic Americanism.” Meanwhile, interwar anticommunism intensified Jersey City’s opposition to CIO organizers, who themselves drew on Popular Front rhetoric of antifascism to oppose “dictatorial” regimes like Hague’s. This polarization complicated Jersey City’s reception of the CIO.

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