A Changing Workforce

This chapter examines the overlap between African Americans' demands for jobs and conservatives' push for “right to work” laws. While compulsory union dues were very different from unions' exclusion of blacks, both movements targeted historically white unions and shared a language of workplace “rights.” Conservative “right to work” activists adopted the tactics of the civil rights movement and aligned themselves with blacks against exclusionary unions. Although this strategy failed to attract African Americans, it called attention to unions' historic and ongoing racism in a way that eventually divided the labor–liberal coalition. This dynamic is key to understanding the National Association of Manufacturers' complicated support for civil rights, equal opportunity, and affirmative action.

Introduction

This introductory chapter presents new understandings of manufacturing's main lobbyist and trade association, the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM). To understand how a conservative, anti-union organization can also be seen as progressive, the chapter first takes a look at its background as it considers how disorganized and chaotic US capitalism was at the end of the nineteenth century, when NAM was founded. In addition to examining NAM's role in organizing and globalizing capitalism, the chapter explores how it worked, who it represented, and how effective it was as a lobbyist. It also identifies NAM's many internal tensions. Furthermore, the chapter identifies the economic, ideological, and institutional concerns that drove NAM actors, as these offer insight into the evolving political taxonomies of our own day.

New Deal Blues and Global Boons

This chapter shows how the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) reorganized and slowly emerged as the first line of resistance to the new New Deal state—thus conforming perfectly to New Dealers' view of capitalists as class-bound reactionaries. Much has been written about the reactionary anti-New Deal National Association of Manufacturers (NAM). The chapter reviews that history to demonstrate its significance in terms of the organization's identity, the struggle for workplace control, and US history in general. But some New Deal policies—such as the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933, the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act of 1934, and the establishment of the Export–Import Bank in 1934—furthered NAM's agendas in industrial rationalization and trade expansion. This highlights the tension between the conservative principles of its leaders and the progressive prerogatives of global capitalism.

Nadir: The Reagan Era

This chapter examines the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) during the 1980s. While Ronald Reagan's attacks on unions were ideologically satisfying, by this time NAM's principal battle was no longer against labor, which had lost its bargaining power. Indeed, the NAM of the 1980s had much in common with its historical enemy as both sought to shore up “old” industries against new import-dependent retailers (like Wal-Mart) and non-unionized high-tech industries. NAM and labor still skirmished, of course. But it is worth considering their common plight in the Reagan Era. Both had been losing both members and politicel clout. Both were part of the old “smokestack” industrial economy. And both were slowly being abandoned by the parties that had once fought their battles in Washington. Just as a new breed of Democrats were ignoring the demands of a shrinking union constituency, so too were Reagan Republicans less than thrilled about saving manufacturing. Once at the forefront of shaping industrial capitalism, NAM and its union foes were now struggling to survive in a post-industrial economy.

Deindustrialization and the Global Imperative

This chapter considers deindustrialization's effects on the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) during the 1960s. While organized labor was quick to recognize the dangers of cheap imports to its interests, organized manufacturing—that is, NAM—seemed belligerently oblivious, even as it was losing members at record rates. It is now widely accepted that imports, Cold War trade policies, and offshoring contributed to deindustrialization, which began in the 1960s. In promoting freer trade and foreign direct investment, NAM, despite its claims to the contrary, was working against the interests of small and midsized manufacturers, who were still the majority of its membership and the most vulnerable to imports. Together with a merger wave in the mid-1960s, deindustrialization eviscerated NAM's membership, which went from a high of 21,801 companies in 1957 to just under 12,000 by 1980. As its membership declined, NAM became even more dependent on large multinationals to meet the challenges of a global economy that it had helped create.

Conservatives vs. Managers

This chapter highlights the fissures among and between corporate capitalists and conservatives in the mid-twentieth century. By the 1950s, businessmen and journalists alike regarded the National Association of Manufacturers' (NAM) ideological “backwardness” as a hindrance to business's interests and unrepresentative of the business community. Partly, this was about corporate liberals criticizing NAM to highlight their own enlightened and reasonable moderation. But mostly, this criticism was fairly earned by a group of “ultraconservatives,” whose control of the purse strings and ties to far-right groups like the John Birch Society were increasingly at odds with NAM's internationalism, professional goals, and membership quandaries—areas overseen by NAM staff. It would be wrong to call the NAM staff “liberal,” but its outlook was more pragmatic, more influenced by business and management schools, and less committed to “rugged individualism” than that of NAM's conservative leaders. The tensions created by ultraconservatives would lead to a restructuring of NAM that sidelined the “old guard” and gave NAM its first full-time paid president and a more pragmatic, issues-based approach to its work.

Back on Track?

This chapter considers the National Association of Manufacturers' (NAM) revival in the 1990s. Indeed, NAM celebrated its one-hundredth anniversary in 1995 amid vastly improved conditions. Blasting premature claims about manufacturing's death, NAM president Jerry Jasinowski declared that American industry was back on track. Manufacturing had transformed itself to meet the global future. Granted, it did so through downsizing, automating, and relocating production abroad. But, Jasinowski insisted, it was still a generator of jobs—better jobs, smarter jobs, and jobs in which workers' input and empowerment were crucial to success. Like past NAM leaders, Jasinowski placed enormous importance on “getting out the story,” but the story was no longer about “free enterprise.” It was about the manufacturing sector's contribution to economic growth and global competitiveness.

The Road to Taft-Hartley

This chapter considers the National Association of Manufacturers' (NAM) most stunning achievement—the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947. Condemned by labor, liberals, and most historians, the Taft-Hartley Act curbed union gains and allegedly marked a turn to the right. But it also represented NAM's acceptance of collective bargaining with industry-wide unions. It was a peace of sorts, a settlement, in NAM's long-running war against big unions. It was NAM “moderates” who advocated for what became the Taft-Hartley Act, not the conservative hardliners. Taft-Hartley required businesses to accept the legitimacy of unions and collective bargaining. In exchange, the act put limitations on unions' right to strike, while expanding management's right to manage. Hard-line conservatives rejected this compromise, while NAM's more moderate and pragmatic conservatives were able to unite all of the major business groups around it, a rare moment of real leadership for NAM at a time when the direction of the US economy was up for grabs.