Walter Reuther and the Rise of the Auto Workers PDF Download

Author: John Barnard
Publisher: Little Brown
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Author: John Barnard
Publisher: Wayne State University Press
ISBN: 9780814332979
Category : Automobile industry and trade
Languages : en
Pages : 628

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Book Description
The struggles and victories of the UAW form an important chapter in the story of American democracy. American Vanguard is the first and only history of the union available for both general and academic audiences. In this thorough and engaging narrative, John Barnard not only records the controversial issues tackled by the UAW, but also lends them immediacy through details about the workers and their environments, the leaders and the challenges that they faced outside and inside the organization, and the vision that guided many of these activists. Throughout, Barnard traces the UAW's two-fold goal: to create an industrial democracy in the workplace and to pursue a social-democratic agenda in the interest of the public at large. Part one explores the obstacles to the UAW's organization, including tensions between militant reformers and workers who feared for their jobs; ideological differences; racial and ethnic issues; and public attitudes toward unions. By the outbreak of World War II, however, the union had succeeded in redistributing power on the shop floor in its members' favor. Part two follows the union during Walter P. Reuther's presidency (1946-1970). During this time, pioneering contracts brought a new standard of living and income security to the workers, while an effort was made to move America toward a social democracy-which met with mixed results during the civil rights decade. Throughout, Barnard presents balanced interpretations grounded in evidence, while setting the UAW within the context of the history of the U.S. auto industry and national politics.

Author: John Barnard
Publisher: Scott Foresman & Company
ISBN: 9780673393203
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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A selective account of the famous union leader's life and stormy career focuses on his achievements during twenty-four years as president of the United Auto Workers and his unflagging commitment to unionism.

Author: Sol Dollinger
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 1583670181
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 239

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"Sol Dollinger's remembrance of UAW's early days are juicy and provocative. His recall of those goofy internecine political battles within the union is tragic-comic. Yet they, united, even though hollering at each other, made GM, Ford, et al,recognize the union. The sequence involving Genora Johnson Dollinger, the heroine of the 1937 sit-down strike, is deeply moving and inspiring." --Studs Terkel "Should be read by every labor person who takes the principles of trade union history seriously. . . . Brings the history of the UAW up for a new survey of the events to include the men and women who would otherwise be unsung heroes or written out of history totally." --David Yettaw President, UAW Buick Local 599, 1987-1996 This story of the birth and infancy of the United Auto Workers, told by two participants, shows how the gains workers made were not easy or inevitable-not automatic-but required strategic and tactical sophistication as well as concerted action. Sol Dollinger recounts how workers, especially activists on the political left, created an auto union and struggled with one another over what shape the union should take. In an oral history conducted by Susan Rosenthal, Genora Johnson Dollinger tells the gripping tale of her role in various struggles, both political and personal.

Author: Nelson Lichtenstein
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 9780252066269
Category : Automobile industry workers
Languages : en
Pages : 610

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Supported by The Walter and May Reuther Memorial Fund Previously published by Basic Books as The Most Dangerous Man in Detroit: Walter Reuther and the Fate of American Labor

Author: Anthony Carew
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 184

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Author: Christopher H. Johnson
Publisher: Wayne State University Press
ISBN: 0814340040
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 403

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Christopher Johnson chronicles the life of Maurice Sugar, from his roots in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, through his resistance with Eugene V Debs to World War I, and on to the struggles of the early 1930s to bring the union message to Detroit. It was Maurice Sugar, labor activist and lawyer for the United Auto Workers, who played a key role in guiding the newly-formed union through the treacherous legal terrain obstructing its development in the 1930s. He orchestrated the injunction hearings on the Dodge Main strike and defended the legality of the sit-down tactic. As the UAW's General Council, he wrote the union's constitution in 1939, a model of democratic thinking. Sugar worked with George Addes, UAW Secretary-Treasurer, to nurture rank-and-file power. A founder of the National Lawyers' Guild, Sugar also served as a member of Detroit's Common Council at the head of a UAW "labor" ticket. By 1947, Sugar was embroiled in a struggle within the UAW that he feared would destroy the open structures he had helped to build. He found himself in opposition to Walter Reuther's bid to run the union. A long-time socialist, Sugar fell victim to mounting Cold War hysteria. When Reuther assumed control of the UAW, Sugar was summarily dismissed. Christopher Johnson chronicles the life of Maurice Sugar, from his roots in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, through his resistance with Eugene V. Debs to World War I, and on to the struggles of the early 1930s to bring the union message to Detroit. Firmly grounded on the historiography of the UAW, Johnson shows the importance of Sugar and the Left in laying the foundation for unionizing the auto industry in the pre-UAW days. He documents the work of the Left in building a Black-labor coalition in Detroit, the importance of anti-Communism in Reuther's rise to power, and the diminution of union democracy in the UAW brought about by the Cold War. Maurice Sugar represents a force in American life that bears recalling in these barren years of plant closings.

Author: Kevin Boyle
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 9780801485381
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 350

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The UAW engaged in these struggles in an attempt to build a cross-class, multiracial reform coalition that would push American politics beyond liberalism and toward social democracy. The effort was in vain; forced to work within political structures - particularly the postwar Democratic party - that militated against change, the union was unable to fashion the alliance it sought. The UAW's political activism nevertheless suggests a new understanding of labor's place in postwar American politics and of the complex forces that defined liberalism in that period. The book also supplies the first detailed discussion of the impact of the Vietnam War on a major American union and shatters the popular image of organized labor as being hawkish on the war.

Author: Robert Asher
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780791424100
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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An anthology of original essays on the history of work experience in automobile factories, from 1913 to the present.

Author: Peter J. Parish
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134261829
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 917

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Book Description
There are so many books on so many aspects of the history of the United States, offering such a wide variety of interpretations, that students, teachers, scholars, and librarians often need help and advice on how to find what they want. The Reader's Guide to American History is designed to meet that need by adopting a new and constructive approach to the appreciation of this rich historiography. Each of the 600 entries on topics in political, social and economic history describes and evaluates some 6 to 12 books on the topic, providing guidance to the reader on everything from broad surveys and interpretive works to specialized monographs. The entries are devoted to events and individuals, as well as broader themes, and are written by a team of well over 200 contributors, all scholars of American history.