Union Discord in Indiana

Indiana shocked the labor movement in 1957 by becoming the first northern industrialized state to pass right-to-work. This chapter analyzes the campaigns waged by business and labor in order to understand how business succeeded in such a highly unionized state. Poor organization and an effective countermovement combined to sink labor in Indiana. Unions in Indiana were politically weak and disorganized at the height of the capital–labor accord. Labor’s insider and outsider strategies were haphazard in comparison to the sophisticated business-led effort spearheaded by the Indiana Chamber of Commerce and the newly formed Indiana Right-to-Work Committee (INRTWC). The outcome of the campaign provided a jolt of confidence to business leaders and led to a surge in right-to-work activity nationally.

Labor Rights in the Era of Union Decline

The conclusion revisits the main findings of the book and considers how important weaknesses unions exhibited in the 1950s matter now in an era marked by union decline and conservative ascendance. The 1950s conflicts over labor rights were more than an interesting side story. Labor never completely conquered the Midwest, where most union members resided during these years. Many of the vulnerabilities unions exhibited then—weak or nonexistent ties to groups outside of the labor movement, ambivalent political allies, inadequate responses to employer mobilization—were magnified in the coming decades, beginning with the economic downturns in the 1970s and continuing to the present day. Contemporary fights over labor rights bear many of the same features of the 1950s conflicts. While state labor movements generally developed more sophisticated political operations over time, enduring labor–community coalitions have proven elusive and are needed now more than ever.

The Capital–Labor Accord in Action

This chapter provides a sketch of labor relations during the 1950s, noting where the imagery of a capital–labor accord is useful and where it falls short. The chapter shows how using the 1950s as a benchmark when explaining union decline tends to obscure key vulnerabilities that labor has long exhibited, well before the fallout in manufacturing and the rise of economic globalization. Gains workers accrued through collective bargaining were exceptional in many ways, though union strength was still confined to a relatively narrow geographic and industrial space. Even here, in the industrial Midwest, there were intense struggles over the legitimacy of unions. This came to a head at the end of the decade when employers made a concerted push for right-to-work.

Back to the Future

This chapter identifies the historical roots of union decline in a period of unparalleled labor strength—the 1950s. Like their contemporary counterparts, unions in the 1950s often struggled to secure influential political allies, to forge coalitions with groups outside of the labor movement, to push back against powerful business interests, and to make a compelling case for labor rights. These weaknesses came to a head at the end of the decade in conflicts over right-to-work laws and public-sector collective bargaining rights in the industrial Midwest. Social movement theory is presented to account for labor’s mixed showing across the heavily unionized states of the Midwest in the 1950s and to identify the political, organizational, and strategic factors critical to labor success then and now. The principal case studies and research design are introduced.

A Holding Pattern in the Midwest

This chapter takes up right-to-work and public-sector collective bargaining legislation at the end of the 1950s and shows how they caught on in the Midwest and elsewhere over the next two decades. The chapter then considers the experience of the other two large industrial states in the region, Michigan and Illinois. While there are some notable differences within the region, such as the impressive labor–liberal coalition in Michigan, it is marked mostly by the disorganization of labor and its allies. Armed with this information, the key findings from chapters 3–5 are put in comparative perspective. While there was no magic bullet for union influence, unions succeeded when they cultivated a broad coalition or influential political allies and, importantly, when their opposition crumbled. This required the presence of unusually resourceful local activists or a push from far-sighted national organizations to overcome otherwise weak statewide organization.

The Insider Route in Wisconsin

This chapter traces the development of the first statewide public-sector collective bargaining legislation in Wisconsin in 1959 and the campaign waged by municipal employees there. The case for public-sector rights lacked the fanfare of the campaigns in Indiana and Ohio, though it was clearly shaped by the political winds surrounding these efforts. Well before the upsurge of civil rights–inspired public-sector organizing in the 1960s and 1970s, bargaining rights in Wisconsin were rooted in the 1950s fights over labor rights. The success of the public-sector union campaign in Wisconsin is mostly a story of political opportunity. It was after more than a decade of public-sector advocates organizing and introducing bills in the legislature, and after the overreach of business activists on right-to-work in the region, that dissension within the Republican Party and between party leaders and business circles provided the opening that activists needed.

Flipping the Script in Ohio

This chapter shows how unions effectively flipped the script on right-to-work. Emboldened by the right-to-work victory in highly unionized Indiana in 1957 and the sensational allegations of union corruption emerging from the McClellan Committee in 1958, business leaders pushed ahead on right-to-work even when their more cautious political allies warned against it. Six states put right-to-work on the ballot, right-to-work organizations formed across the Midwest, and the Ohio campaign was the center of it all. Labor succeeded in Ohio due to solid organization and an unusually broad coalition, a development aided by the more active role of the national labor movement in the conflict. The coalition allowed unions to move away from a purely defensive approach to right-to-work and to keep union leaders from becoming the focus as they had in prior campaigns. By contrast, the Ohio Chamber of Commerce struggled to mobilize some of their closest allies.