The U.S. Labor Movement and the Global Marketplace

2016 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Labor Movement ◽  
Global Marketplace ◽  
The U.S

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.

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.

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.

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