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Author: Andrew E. Kersten Publisher: NYU Press ISBN: 081474835X Category : History Languages : en Pages : 288
Book Description
One of the oldest, strongest, and largest labor organizations in the U.S., the American Federation of Labor (AFL) had 4 million members in over 20,000 union locals during World War II. The AFL played a key role in wartime production and was a major actor in the contentious relationship between the state, organized labor, and the working class in the 1940s. The war years are pivotal in the history of American labor, but books on the AFL’s experiences are scant, with far more on the radical Congress of Industrial Unions (CIO). Andrew E. Kersten closes this gap with Labor’s Home Front, challenging us to reconsider the AFL and its influence on twentieth-century history. Kersten details the union's contributions to wartime labor relations, its opposition to the open shop movement, divided support for fair employment and equity for women and African American workers, its constant battles with the CIO, and its significant efforts to reshape American society, economics, and politics after the war. Throughout, Kersten frames his narrative with an original, central theme: that despite its conservative nature, the AFL was dramatically transformed during World War II, becoming a more powerful progressive force that pushed for liberal change.
Author: Andrew E. Kersten Publisher: NYU Press ISBN: 081474835X Category : History Languages : en Pages : 288
Book Description
One of the oldest, strongest, and largest labor organizations in the U.S., the American Federation of Labor (AFL) had 4 million members in over 20,000 union locals during World War II. The AFL played a key role in wartime production and was a major actor in the contentious relationship between the state, organized labor, and the working class in the 1940s. The war years are pivotal in the history of American labor, but books on the AFL’s experiences are scant, with far more on the radical Congress of Industrial Unions (CIO). Andrew E. Kersten closes this gap with Labor’s Home Front, challenging us to reconsider the AFL and its influence on twentieth-century history. Kersten details the union's contributions to wartime labor relations, its opposition to the open shop movement, divided support for fair employment and equity for women and African American workers, its constant battles with the CIO, and its significant efforts to reshape American society, economics, and politics after the war. Throughout, Kersten frames his narrative with an original, central theme: that despite its conservative nature, the AFL was dramatically transformed during World War II, becoming a more powerful progressive force that pushed for liberal change.
Author: Fred Glass Publisher: Univ of California Press ISBN: 0520288408 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 542
Book Description
There is no better time than now to consider the labor history of the Golden State. While other states face declining union enrollment rates and the rollback of workersÕ rights, California unions are embracing working immigrants, and voters are protecting core worker rights. WhatÕs the difference? California has held an exceptional place in the imagination of Americans and immigrants since the Gold Rush, which saw the first of many waves of working people moving to the state to find work. From Mission to Microchip unearths the hidden stories of these people throughout CaliforniaÕs history. The difficult task of the stateÕs labor movement has been to overcome perceived barriers such as race, national origin, and language to unite newcomers and natives in their shared interest. As chronicled in this comprehensive history, workers have creatively used collective bargaining, politics, strikes, and varied organizing strategies to find common ground among CaliforniaÕs diverse communities and achieve a measure of economic fairness and social justice. This is an indispensible book for students and scholars of labor history and history of the West, as well as labor activists and organizers.Ê
Author: Norman H. Finkelstein Publisher: National Geographic Books ISBN: 1629796387 Category : Juvenile Nonfiction Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
Unsung hero Samuel Gompers worked tirelessly to ensure that no American worker would go unheard or overlooked, dedicating his life to fighting for their rights. This comprehensive middle-grade biography provides an in-depth look at Gompers, the founding father of the American Federation of Labor. Born in England, Samuel Gompers grew up watching his father roll cigars, and at 10 years old, started rolling them himself. After immigrating to the United States, Gompers soon discovered his vocation to fight for the American laborer in his personal work experience. His charismatic, outspoken personality soon landed him the role of speaking on behalf of his fellow workers. His participation in various unsuccessful unions and other failed ventures to enact labor changes led to his creation of the American Federation of Labor. Faced with strikes that turned violent, opposition from the government, and lies perpetrated by anti-unionizers, Gompers persevered, and lived to see various measures enacted to ensure safe work environments, workers' compensation, and other basic laborer rights.
Author: G. William Domhoff Publisher: Touchstone ISBN: Category : History Languages : en Pages : 244
Book Description
The author is convinced that there is a ruling class in America today. He examines the American power structure as it has developed in the 1980s. He presents systematic, empirical evidence that a fixed group of privileged people dominates the American economy and government. The book demonstrates that an upper class comprising only one-half of one percent of the population occupies key positions within the corporate community. It shows how leaders within this "power elite" reach government and dominate it through processes of special-interest lobbying, policy planning and candidate selection. It is written not to promote any political ideology, but to analyze our society with accuracy.
Author: Michael Schiavone Publisher: Praeger ISBN: Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 172
Book Description
Unionism in the United States was quite successful during and after World War II, especially during the golden years of American capitalism (1947-73) as workers' wages increased quite dramatically in a number of industries. For example, average hourly earnings for workers in meatpacking rose 114% between 1950 and 1965, those in steel 102%, in rubber tires by 96%, and in manufacturing 81%. At the same time as union members' wages were increasing, union membership was declining. Yet, the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) argued that organizing new members was not a priority. By concentrating on the existing membership and bread-and-butter issues, and not organizing new members, unionism could not deal with the attack on the social contract by employers and the government beginning in the United States in the late 1970s. However, while many people are claiming that organized labor is a dinosaur, Schiavone argues that a strong union movement is needed now more than ever. Unionism in the United States was quite successful during and after World War II, especially during the golden years of American capitalism (1947-73) as workers' wages increased quite dramatically in a number of industries. For example, average hourly earnings for workers in meatpacking rose 114% between 1950 and 1965, those in steel 102%, in rubber tires by 96%, and in manufacturing 81%. At the same time as union members' wages were increasing, union membership was declining. Yet, the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) argued that organizing new members was not a priority. By concentrating on the existing membership and bread-and-butter issues, and not organizing new members, unionism could not deal with the attack on the social contract by employers and the government beginning in the United States in the late 1970s. Following that attack, there was a significant decline in U.S. workers' wages and conditions in real terms, and there was a corresponding decline in union membership. However, while many people are claiming that organized labor is a dinosaur, Schiavone argues that a strong union movement is now needed more than ever. If unions make major changes as outlined in this book, the U.S. labor movement may regain some of its strength. By fighting for workplace (such as higher wages) and non-workplace issues (such as the fight for adequate childcare or against racism), unions in America and Canada that embraced what Schiavone calls social justice unionism have improved society for all. On purely bread-and-butter issues, these unions have achieved better collective bargaining agreements than their rival mainstream unions, as well as organizing more new workers per capita. How much strength organized labor will regain by embracing social justice unionism is uncertain, but it is a beginning.
Author: Nelson Lichtenstein Publisher: Princeton University Press ISBN: 1400838525 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 353
Book Description
In a fresh and timely reinterpretation, Nelson Lichtenstein examines how trade unionism has waxed and waned in the nation's political and moral imagination, among both devoted partisans and intransigent foes. From the steel foundry to the burger-grill, from Woodrow Wilson to John Sweeney, from Homestead to Pittston, Lichtenstein weaves together a compelling matrix of ideas, stories, strikes, laws, and people in a streamlined narrative of work and labor in the twentieth century. The "labor question" became a burning issue during the Progressive Era because its solution seemed essential to the survival of American democracy itself. Beginning there, Lichtenstein takes us all the way to the organizing fever of contemporary Los Angeles, where the labor movement stands at the center of the effort to transform millions of new immigrants into alert citizen unionists. He offers an expansive survey of labor's upsurge during the 1930s, when the New Deal put a white, male version of industrial democracy at the heart of U.S. political culture. He debunks the myth of a postwar "management-labor accord" by showing that there was (at most) a limited, unstable truce. Lichtenstein argues that the ideas that had once sustained solidarity and citizenship in the world of work underwent a radical transformation when the rights-centered social movements of the 1960s and 1970s captured the nation's moral imagination. The labor movement was therefore tragically unprepared for the years of Reagan and Clinton: although technological change and a new era of global economics battered the unions, their real failure was one of ideas and political will. Throughout, Lichtenstein argues that labor's most important function, in theory if not always in practice, has been the vitalization of a democratic ethos, at work and in the larger society. To the extent that the unions fuse their purpose with that impulse, they can once again become central to the fate of the republic. State of the Union is an incisive history that tells the story of one of America's defining aspirations.
Author: Andrew E. Kersten
Author: Andrew E. Kersten
Author: Fred Glass
Author: Norman H. Finkelstein
Author: G. William Domhoff
Author: Louis Stark
Author: William Green
Author: Samuel Gompers
Author: Michael Schiavone
Author: Samuel Gompers
Author: Nelson Lichtenstein