HISTORY 144G Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Underconsumption, Industrial Unionism, Social Capital
New Deal only seemed like it was alleviating the labor question because that
was the way that people thought that they could structurally solve the crisis of
American capitalism
•
Thought that only way to solve this challenge was if democratic process given
social + industrial meaning that finally breached the walls erected by property +
managerial guardsmen—>thought state-assisted growth + radical
transformation essential to trade union movement
•
Master narrative pushed by nostalgic Reaganites, contemporary managers,
journalistic heralds of cyber revolution: there's a divide separating our era from
economic structures of depression decade and technology of mass production
regime thought to dominate first half of 1900s
Union upsurge during 1930s happened when unskilled, assembly-line
workers revolted against brutal and arrogant bosses
○
Argument: no point in unions today because they're no longer useful in
our computer-driven, postindustrial, post-Fordist world
○
•
Lichtenstein's Argument: Actually problems of 1930s and 1940s are still
happening today
Trade unions more than product of set tech or managerial structures and
they do more than reflect economic needs and social aspirations of slice
of working population
○
Mass unionism happened because of state-assisted growth of these
institutions—>hoped solutions of 2 of central problems confronting
political economy of this time would come out of this
○
•
"Underconsumption" and Its Remedies
Underconsumption:
Shift from industries of 19th century to electrically driven, gasoline-
powered economy more directly dependent on high level of consumer
demand—many old industries "sick" and couldn't economically recover a
lot
In textiles and coal, lots of overproduction and competition that
made workers' pay get cut as
§
○
1928-9: sales lagged, inventories rose, factories cut output,
unemployment rose
Didn't help either that the rich were getting richer
§
Reinforced by concentration of productive capacity and financial
power among but relative handful of really big corporations
They became quasi-public institutions that established prices
and directed investment—>consequence for millions of
Americans
□
Also cut hours, spread work, tried to avoid round of
competitive pricing
□
Couldn’t afford to keep excess workers even part time□
§
○
•
Adolf Berle and Gardner Means: 2 intellectuals of Roosevelt administration
Argument: Corporate officials "administered" prices, oppressed workers,
ignored shareholder interests—>if the power they held was illegitimate,
workers, consumers, government regulators should intervene to
restructure wage-price relation + make corporate decision-making more
democratically accountable
○
•
These intellectuals' ideas showed up w/ establishment of National Recovery
Administration (NRA) which tried to restore prosperity during first 2 years of
New Deal
Didn't want laissez-faire economics, wanted to codify American capitalism
by promoting a bunch of industry "codes" that would put a floor under
wages and prices, and a ceiling on hours and effort
○
•
Labor's voice essential to industry self-regulation—only they really knew
business conditions and could enforce what they wanted
•
Section 7a of NRA: required "employees shall have the right to organize and
bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing…free from
interference, restraint, or coercion of employers"
•
Goal: better distribution of wealth for wage-earners who make a lot of what
consumers demand
•
Consumption, Security, and "The American Standard"
New Deal took new consumer culture of 20th century and made it a political
project
Wanted to politicize private nightmare of the shame and fear of
unemployment that people had
○
•
Communists and Socialists had a bunch of marches and stuff to try to bring
attention to these issues and have everyone look to the state for a solution to
them—>New Deal relief programs—>active sense of citizenship—>more people
looked to Washington to help them realize their American Dream
•
People wanted job security first—>Roosevelts administration did what they
could to try to achieve this
•
Post-War slump—>Roosevelt returned to this theme again + insisted on a
"Second Bill of Rights" that would provide citizens w/ right to a job, medical
care, education, housing, decent income
•
This security consciousness became so widespread that even opponents of the
New Deal tried to appeal to this
•
Industrial Democracy
This was the second great rationale for state-assisted birth of mass-unionism
during Great Depression
•
To many of the people who became unionists during 1930s and 1940s, New
Deal and new unionism represented a higher standard of living + doorway that
would help them get to democratic promise of American life
Security could help them challenge illegitimate power
○
•
Political culture celebrated all these rights: Jeffersonian world of free speech,
democratic participation, masterless autonomy
•
But this is what the corporate world and industrial municipalities actually had:
autocracy, obedience, social submission/respect
Supported by legal precedent and business practice of the past
○
When confronting employers, workers had no permitted rights for free
speech, assembly, or petition—>many would be fired, blacklisted, or
forced out of town—violation of nation's democratic norms
○
•
Industrial democracy of John L. Lewis:
Based on republican sense of democratic governance
○
People who believed in this wished they had "industrial jurisprudence",
constitutionalization of factory governance, growth of two-party system
that put unions and managers on equal footing
○
•
There was a lot of upheaval from workers in a bunch of industries in summer
and fall of 1934
Their walkouts usually took flavor of general political strike and these
upheavals usually led by radicals
○
But these strikes got the attention of the government to want to find a
resolution to labor question through politics
○
Upheavals came at a time of transition
American leaders of politics and enterprise celebrated a society
that's formally democratic and individualist
Political rhetoric usually devalued idea of self-organization
along class/interest-group lines
Did so by saying that conflict and instability happened
because of internal corruption, outside agitation, or
alien ideologies
®
Example: how during and after WWI, being 100%
American meant that you supported anti-socialism,
anti-immigrant efforts of vigilante groups
Union organizers and radical agitators usually
made to kneel and kiss the American flag to prove
their loyalty to the nation and its institutions
◊
®
□
§
○
•
Contrast upheaval to 1930s where liberals, labor, and left successfully captured
the flag during the 1930s
FDR successfully manipulated symbols of national pride and identity with
his fireside chats, parades, etc.
People began to feel more connected to their government and
symbol of Blue Eagle heightened feelings of national unit and
national mobilization
§
○
Union movement leaders used this to their benefit
○
•
National banner came to symbolize power of newly assertive federal
government and kind of ethnically diverse Americanism new unionism and New
Deal sought to build
•
The Wagner Act
Industrial democracy promised a bunch of things
Generate industrial citizenship demanded by so many workers and
reformers
○
Also procedure for dispute resolution
○
Sought to bring commodity of ordinary world: informed and willing
consent
○
How arbitrator William Leiserson saw collective bargaining
○
•
New Deal effort to encourage collective bargaining represented psychologically
sophisticated technique for social integration of employees and their enterprise
•
Sumner Slichter saw collective bargaining as helping to routinize and challenge
social conflict by "introducing civil rights into industry…" (36)
•
To this generation of people, New Deal represented normative social order
establishing new constitutionalism within American factories and mills (36)
This kind of hope was put into the Wagner Act (36)
○
•
Wagner Act
Like a "Magna Carta" for the labor movement (36)
○
Radical legislative initiative—meant to put in place permanent set of
institutions within womb of private enterprise, which offered workers a
voice (sometimes even a club) to resolve their grievances and organize
themselves for economic struggle
○
Guaranteed workers right to select own union by majority vote, strike,
boycott, and picket
○
Listed a bunch of "unfair labor practices" by employers
○
Established National Labor Relations Board
Would hear employee complaints
§
Determined union jurisdictions
§
Conducted on-site elections
§
○
Now management was legally obligated to negotiate with unions
○
Goal of setting this up: getting rid of employee organizations that were
dominated by management
Banned management participation in or encouragement to a union
§
Proscribed proportional representation (so no more than one
unions can represent workers in a given trade or company)
§
○
•
Wagner Act proponents accepted the fact that society had class divisions
structuring society and its workplaces
•
The Labor Movement and Its Divisions
In order for Wagner Act to have real social and political meaning, US needed a
working-class mobilization of a lot of power and strength
Worried that Supreme Court would declare Wagner Act unconstitutional
just like they had recently done with the NRA
○
Large employers thought this law unenforcable—>ignored it and fought
union organizing efforts
○
•
Meanwhile, leadership of AFL unwilling and unable to wage necessary figh
Preferred craft unionism
○
No comprehensive strategy for organizing semi-skilled production
workers who made up most of workers in great mass-production
industries
○
Preferred "exclusive jurisdiction" where seek to organize only a few of the
workforce in each factory, mill, or construction site
○
•
There were union schemas which usually gave unionism "professional" feel—>
opened door to white- and gray-collar workers
Sometimes they would use the word "guild" instead of union to make
joining have more appeal to working class
○
But craft unions like this were usually quite an exception
○
1930s AFL: patriarchal and racist—>greeted immigrants and unskilled
Southerners with disdain
Preferred old order
§
There were lots of prejudices against workers who wanted to
organize and if their abilities to even organize
§
○
•
1930s had "culture wars"
New Deal made shop-floor citizens of Eastern European Catholics, African
Americans, French Canadians, and migratory Appalachians have a position
of deference (submission) and subordination to old German, Irish,
Northern Protestant elie
○
New unions w/ all their radical Jews and anticlerical Catholics threatened
lifetime of social capital and ethnic privilege built up by those whose
outlooks more ignorant and relating to church
○
•
There were cultural and racial fissures of 1930s and they still exist today but
along different lines
•
Trade unionism requires compelling set of ideas and institutions to give labor's
cause power and legitimacy
"class consciousness…is 'made,' not 'given'" (43)
○
•
Leadership
President Lewis (of United Mine Workers) and President Hillman (of
Amalgamated Clothing Workers) both industrial unionists who thought
organization of all workers most effective basis for growth of labor's power in
mass production industries
Also broke with AFL—perfect time to unionize industrial workers + push
New Deal toward kind of social democratic politics and policies they
favored
○
Thought this could help multiply membership, economic power, and
political clout
○
•
These two presidents and few like-minded colleagues thought that any mass
organizing effort would have to take place under banner of new Committee for
Industrial Organization outside old AFL framework
•
Lewis wanted to organize labor movement by industry instead of by craft•
Industrial unionism essential to defense of American democracy and republican
virtue
•
CIO success for the next 2 years had a lot to do with their ability to tap energy of
thousands of grassroots activists while providing national coordination and
leadership than enabled new unions to confront multi-state corporations
•
Need radicals to organize a big trade union movement
Even though they had the Wagner Act, most workers didn't do anything—
defeat might threaten the little job security they had managed to achieve
○
Only those radicals who saw organizing project as part of collective
enterprise + unions could help build a new society could hope that
hardships they endured might bring them political and social rewards
○
•
Radicals couldn't do this alone though
New unions began to recenter Democratic party's electoral base: more
workers and voters energized by the promise of industrial citizenship
○
•
Roosevelt's 1936 campaign rhetoric was borderline anticapitalist
But it helped him align himself with aspirations of wage earners and small
property owners—>got the popular vote
○
Now, urban working people made up core of new Democratic electorate
○
•
There were some "Little New Deals" that transformed company-tow politics of
scores of industrial cities in New England, Pennsylvania, and the Midwest
•
CIO! CIO! CIO!
CIO efforts to organize basic industries of America came to climax in what's
probably most significant work stoppage in 20th century American history: "sit-
down" strike at General Motors Corporation in winter of 1937
•
At this time, GM was
One of most sophisticated, largest, and most profitable corporations of US
○
It was a technically proficient organization
○
But their managers very hostile to New Deal and new unions
○
•
What autoworkers wanted
Defend health and dignity on shop floor
○
Job security during layoffs
○
Standard of living
○
Not as much about wages as it was about arbitrary supervision, economic
insecurity, dehumanizing "speed-up" characteristic of Taylorized mass
production in twentieth century
○
•
Foremen and other managers had right to discipline, fire, lay off, rehire at own
discretion
Corporation successfully resisted union and NRA efforts to make
"seniority" determine someone's promotion and recall rights
○
Said that they needed this kind of discretion to make keep operations
efficient
But workers saw this as actually a way to punish unionists and
reward others
§
○
•
By 1936, Flint, Michigan a huge GM company town
Mayor, police chief, 3 city commissioners, newspaper, radio station,
school officials all on their payroll
○
•
UAW's burden of conducting struggle w/ GM rested on same relatively small
group of committed activists who'd be important to union-building process in
other industries
•
UAW success had 2 reasons
Sit-down tactic stopped production
Tactic not new but they used it to maximize leverage of minority +
avoid conflicts w/ police + strikebreakers
§
Reflected legitimacy achieve by another kind of popular social right:
claim of so many workers toward their jobs and their livelihoods
(50)
§
○
The fact that labor's Democratic Party allies kept Michigan's powerful
militia forces from coming in and stopping them—this tactic was of
questionable legality
Didn't deploy national guard or army to evict strikers and restore
"public order"
§
○
•
GM and UAW-CIO reached settlement w/ signed contract on February 11, 1937
Remarkable victory
○
GM recognized union as sole voice of employees + agreed to negotiate w/
UAW leaders on multiplant basis—>union activists could now speak up,
recruit other workers, complain to management w/o fear of being
punished
○
•
Settlement transformed expectations of workers and managers alike across
industrial America
People used to be too scared to become active in this movement
○
Union membership grew + so many more people took part in industrial
action
○
•
There were a lot more sit-down strikes—>made headlines that influenced even
nation's most conservative elites
President of U.S. Steel raised wages + recognized CIO's Steel Workers'
Organizing Committee as sole bargaining agent for its employees to try to
avoid conflict w/ own workers
○
Also made Supreme Court endorse constitutionality of Wagner Act
○
•
But soon there was furious opposition from corporate adversaries, Southern
Bourbons, craft unionists, many elements of New Deal coalition
The unions would never again enjoy political environment as favorable as
that which transformed American work life 1934-7
○
•
Lichtenstein, Ch. 1: Reconstructing the 1930s
Wednesday, April 11, 2018
5:04 PM
New Deal only seemed like it was alleviating the labor question because that
was the way that people thought that they could structurally solve the crisis of
American capitalism
•
Thought that only way to solve this challenge was if democratic process given
social + industrial meaning that finally breached the walls erected by property +
managerial guardsmen—>thought state-assisted growth + radical
transformation essential to trade union movement
•
Master narrative pushed by nostalgic Reaganites, contemporary managers,
journalistic heralds of cyber revolution: there's a divide separating our era from
economic structures of depression decade and technology of mass production
regime thought to dominate first half of 1900s
Union upsurge during 1930s happened when unskilled, assembly-line
workers revolted against brutal and arrogant bosses
○
Argument: no point in unions today because they're no longer useful in
our computer-driven, postindustrial, post-Fordist world
○
•
Lichtenstein's Argument: Actually problems of 1930s and 1940s are still
happening today
Trade unions more than product of set tech or managerial structures and
they do more than reflect economic needs and social aspirations of slice
of working population
○
Mass unionism happened because of state-assisted growth of these
institutions—>hoped solutions of 2 of central problems confronting
political economy of this time would come out of this
○
•
"Underconsumption" and Its Remedies
Underconsumption:
Shift from industries of 19th century to electrically driven, gasoline-
powered economy more directly dependent on high level of consumer
demand—many old industries "sick" and couldn't economically recover a
lot
In textiles and coal, lots of overproduction and competition that
made workers' pay get cut as
§
○
1928-9: sales lagged, inventories rose, factories cut output,
unemployment rose
Didn't help either that the rich were getting richer
§
Reinforced by concentration of productive capacity and financial
power among but relative handful of really big corporations
They became quasi-public institutions that established prices
and directed investment—>consequence for millions of
Americans
□
Also cut hours, spread work, tried to avoid round of
competitive pricing
□
Couldn’t afford to keep excess workers even part time
□
§
○
•
Adolf Berle and Gardner Means: 2 intellectuals of Roosevelt administration
Argument: Corporate officials "administered" prices, oppressed workers,
ignored shareholder interests—>if the power they held was illegitimate,
workers, consumers, government regulators should intervene to
restructure wage-price relation + make corporate decision-making more
democratically accountable
○
•
These intellectuals' ideas showed up w/ establishment of National Recovery
Administration (NRA) which tried to restore prosperity during first 2 years of
New Deal
Didn't want laissez-faire economics, wanted to codify American capitalism
by promoting a bunch of industry "codes" that would put a floor under
wages and prices, and a ceiling on hours and effort
○
•
Labor's voice essential to industry self-regulation—only they really knew
business conditions and could enforce what they wanted
•
Section 7a of NRA: required "employees shall have the right to organize and
bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing…free from
interference, restraint, or coercion of employers"
•
Goal: better distribution of wealth for wage-earners who make a lot of what
consumers demand
•
Consumption, Security, and "The American Standard"
New Deal took new consumer culture of 20th century and made it a political
project
Wanted to politicize private nightmare of the shame and fear of
unemployment that people had
○
•
Communists and Socialists had a bunch of marches and stuff to try to bring
attention to these issues and have everyone look to the state for a solution to
them—>New Deal relief programs—>active sense of citizenship—>more people
looked to Washington to help them realize their American Dream
•
People wanted job security first—>Roosevelts administration did what they
could to try to achieve this
•
Post-War slump—>Roosevelt returned to this theme again + insisted on a
"Second Bill of Rights" that would provide citizens w/ right to a job, medical
care, education, housing, decent income
•
This security consciousness became so widespread that even opponents of the
New Deal tried to appeal to this
•
Industrial Democracy
This was the second great rationale for state-assisted birth of mass-unionism
during Great Depression
•
To many of the people who became unionists during 1930s and 1940s, New
Deal and new unionism represented a higher standard of living + doorway that
would help them get to democratic promise of American life
Security could help them challenge illegitimate power
○
•
Political culture celebrated all these rights: Jeffersonian world of free speech,
democratic participation, masterless autonomy
•
But this is what the corporate world and industrial municipalities actually had:
autocracy, obedience, social submission/respect
Supported by legal precedent and business practice of the past
○
When confronting employers, workers had no permitted rights for free
speech, assembly, or petition—>many would be fired, blacklisted, or
forced out of town—violation of nation's democratic norms
○
•
Industrial democracy of John L. Lewis:
Based on republican sense of democratic governance
○
People who believed in this wished they had "industrial jurisprudence",
constitutionalization of factory governance, growth of two-party system
that put unions and managers on equal footing
○
•
There was a lot of upheaval from workers in a bunch of industries in summer
and fall of 1934
Their walkouts usually took flavor of general political strike and these
upheavals usually led by radicals
○
But these strikes got the attention of the government to want to find a
resolution to labor question through politics
○
Upheavals came at a time of transition
American leaders of politics and enterprise celebrated a society
that's formally democratic and individualist
Political rhetoric usually devalued idea of self-organization
along class/interest-group lines
Did so by saying that conflict and instability happened
because of internal corruption, outside agitation, or
alien ideologies
®
Example: how during and after WWI, being 100%
American meant that you supported anti-socialism,
anti-immigrant efforts of vigilante groups
Union organizers and radical agitators usually
made to kneel and kiss the American flag to prove
their loyalty to the nation and its institutions
◊
®
□
§
○
•
Contrast upheaval to 1930s where liberals, labor, and left successfully captured
the flag during the 1930s
FDR successfully manipulated symbols of national pride and identity with
his fireside chats, parades, etc.
People began to feel more connected to their government and
symbol of Blue Eagle heightened feelings of national unit and
national mobilization
§
○
Union movement leaders used this to their benefit
○
•
National banner came to symbolize power of newly assertive federal
government and kind of ethnically diverse Americanism new unionism and New
Deal sought to build
•
The Wagner Act
Industrial democracy promised a bunch of things
Generate industrial citizenship demanded by so many workers and
reformers
○
Also procedure for dispute resolution
○
Sought to bring commodity of ordinary world: informed and willing
consent
○
How arbitrator William Leiserson saw collective bargaining
○
•
New Deal effort to encourage collective bargaining represented psychologically
sophisticated technique for social integration of employees and their enterprise
•
Sumner Slichter saw collective bargaining as helping to routinize and challenge
social conflict by "introducing civil rights into industry…" (36)
•
To this generation of people, New Deal represented normative social order
establishing new constitutionalism within American factories and mills (36)
This kind of hope was put into the Wagner Act (36)
○
•
Wagner Act
Like a "Magna Carta" for the labor movement (36)
○
Radical legislative initiative—meant to put in place permanent set of
institutions within womb of private enterprise, which offered workers a
voice (sometimes even a club) to resolve their grievances and organize
themselves for economic struggle
○
Guaranteed workers right to select own union by majority vote, strike,
boycott, and picket
○
Listed a bunch of "unfair labor practices" by employers
○
Established National Labor Relations Board
Would hear employee complaints
§
Determined union jurisdictions
§
Conducted on-site elections
§
○
Now management was legally obligated to negotiate with unions
○
Goal of setting this up: getting rid of employee organizations that were
dominated by management
Banned management participation in or encouragement to a union
§
Proscribed proportional representation (so no more than one
unions can represent workers in a given trade or company)
§
○
•
Wagner Act proponents accepted the fact that society had class divisions
structuring society and its workplaces
•
The Labor Movement and Its Divisions
In order for Wagner Act to have real social and political meaning, US needed a
working-class mobilization of a lot of power and strength
Worried that Supreme Court would declare Wagner Act unconstitutional
just like they had recently done with the NRA
○
Large employers thought this law unenforcable—>ignored it and fought
union organizing efforts
○
•
Meanwhile, leadership of AFL unwilling and unable to wage necessary figh
Preferred craft unionism
○
No comprehensive strategy for organizing semi-skilled production
workers who made up most of workers in great mass-production
industries
○
Preferred "exclusive jurisdiction" where seek to organize only a few of the
workforce in each factory, mill, or construction site
○
•
There were union schemas which usually gave unionism "professional" feel—>
opened door to white- and gray-collar workers
Sometimes they would use the word "guild" instead of union to make
joining have more appeal to working class
○
But craft unions like this were usually quite an exception
○
1930s AFL: patriarchal and racist—>greeted immigrants and unskilled
Southerners with disdain
Preferred old order
§
There were lots of prejudices against workers who wanted to
organize and if their abilities to even organize
§
○
•
1930s had "culture wars"
New Deal made shop-floor citizens of Eastern European Catholics, African
Americans, French Canadians, and migratory Appalachians have a position
of deference (submission) and subordination to old German, Irish,
Northern Protestant elie
○
New unions w/ all their radical Jews and anticlerical Catholics threatened
lifetime of social capital and ethnic privilege built up by those whose
outlooks more ignorant and relating to church
○
•
There were cultural and racial fissures of 1930s and they still exist today but
along different lines
•
Trade unionism requires compelling set of ideas and institutions to give labor's
cause power and legitimacy
"class consciousness…is 'made,' not 'given'" (43)
○
•
Leadership
President Lewis (of United Mine Workers) and President Hillman (of
Amalgamated Clothing Workers) both industrial unionists who thought
organization of all workers most effective basis for growth of labor's power in
mass production industries
Also broke with AFL—perfect time to unionize industrial workers + push
New Deal toward kind of social democratic politics and policies they
favored
○
Thought this could help multiply membership, economic power, and
political clout
○
•
These two presidents and few like-minded colleagues thought that any mass
organizing effort would have to take place under banner of new Committee for
Industrial Organization outside old AFL framework
•
Lewis wanted to organize labor movement by industry instead of by craft•
Industrial unionism essential to defense of American democracy and republican
virtue
•
CIO success for the next 2 years had a lot to do with their ability to tap energy of
thousands of grassroots activists while providing national coordination and
leadership than enabled new unions to confront multi-state corporations
•
Need radicals to organize a big trade union movement
Even though they had the Wagner Act, most workers didn't do anything—
defeat might threaten the little job security they had managed to achieve
○
Only those radicals who saw organizing project as part of collective
enterprise + unions could help build a new society could hope that
hardships they endured might bring them political and social rewards
○
•
Radicals couldn't do this alone though
New unions began to recenter Democratic party's electoral base: more
workers and voters energized by the promise of industrial citizenship
○
•
Roosevelt's 1936 campaign rhetoric was borderline anticapitalist
But it helped him align himself with aspirations of wage earners and small
property owners—>got the popular vote
○
Now, urban working people made up core of new Democratic electorate
○
•
There were some "Little New Deals" that transformed company-tow politics of
scores of industrial cities in New England, Pennsylvania, and the Midwest
•
CIO! CIO! CIO!
CIO efforts to organize basic industries of America came to climax in what's
probably most significant work stoppage in 20th century American history: "sit-
down" strike at General Motors Corporation in winter of 1937
•
At this time, GM was
One of most sophisticated, largest, and most profitable corporations of US
○
It was a technically proficient organization
○
But their managers very hostile to New Deal and new unions
○
•
What autoworkers wanted
Defend health and dignity on shop floor
○
Job security during layoffs
○
Standard of living
○
Not as much about wages as it was about arbitrary supervision, economic
insecurity, dehumanizing "speed-up" characteristic of Taylorized mass
production in twentieth century
○
•
Foremen and other managers had right to discipline, fire, lay off, rehire at own
discretion
Corporation successfully resisted union and NRA efforts to make
"seniority" determine someone's promotion and recall rights
○
Said that they needed this kind of discretion to make keep operations
efficient
But workers saw this as actually a way to punish unionists and
reward others
§
○
•
By 1936, Flint, Michigan a huge GM company town
Mayor, police chief, 3 city commissioners, newspaper, radio station,
school officials all on their payroll
○
•
UAW's burden of conducting struggle w/ GM rested on same relatively small
group of committed activists who'd be important to union-building process in
other industries
•
UAW success had 2 reasons
Sit-down tactic stopped production
Tactic not new but they used it to maximize leverage of minority +
avoid conflicts w/ police + strikebreakers
§
Reflected legitimacy achieve by another kind of popular social right:
claim of so many workers toward their jobs and their livelihoods
(50)
§
○
The fact that labor's Democratic Party allies kept Michigan's powerful
militia forces from coming in and stopping them—this tactic was of
questionable legality
Didn't deploy national guard or army to evict strikers and restore
"public order"
§
○
•
GM and UAW-CIO reached settlement w/ signed contract on February 11, 1937
Remarkable victory
○
GM recognized union as sole voice of employees + agreed to negotiate w/
UAW leaders on multiplant basis—>union activists could now speak up,
recruit other workers, complain to management w/o fear of being
punished
○
•
Settlement transformed expectations of workers and managers alike across
industrial America
People used to be too scared to become active in this movement
○
Union membership grew + so many more people took part in industrial
action
○
•
There were a lot more sit-down strikes—>made headlines that influenced even
nation's most conservative elites
President of U.S. Steel raised wages + recognized CIO's Steel Workers'
Organizing Committee as sole bargaining agent for its employees to try to
avoid conflict w/ own workers
○
Also made Supreme Court endorse constitutionality of Wagner Act
○
•
But soon there was furious opposition from corporate adversaries, Southern
Bourbons, craft unionists, many elements of New Deal coalition
The unions would never again enjoy political environment as favorable as
that which transformed American work life 1934-7
○
•
Lichtenstein, Ch. 1: Reconstructing the 1930s
Wednesday, April 11, 2018 5:04 PM
New Deal only seemed like it was alleviating the labor question because that
was the way that people thought that they could structurally solve the crisis of
American capitalism
•
Thought that only way to solve this challenge was if democratic process given
social + industrial meaning that finally breached the walls erected by property +
managerial guardsmen—>thought state-assisted growth + radical
transformation essential to trade union movement
•
Master narrative pushed by nostalgic Reaganites, contemporary managers,
journalistic heralds of cyber revolution: there's a divide separating our era from
economic structures of depression decade and technology of mass production
regime thought to dominate first half of 1900s
Union upsurge during 1930s happened when unskilled, assembly-line
workers revolted against brutal and arrogant bosses
○
Argument: no point in unions today because they're no longer useful in
our computer-driven, postindustrial, post-Fordist world
○
•
Lichtenstein's Argument: Actually problems of 1930s and 1940s are still
happening today
Trade unions more than product of set tech or managerial structures and
they do more than reflect economic needs and social aspirations of slice
of working population
○
Mass unionism happened because of state-assisted growth of these
institutions—>hoped solutions of 2 of central problems confronting
political economy of this time would come out of this
○
•
"Underconsumption" and Its Remedies
Underconsumption:
Shift from industries of 19th century to electrically driven, gasoline-
powered economy more directly dependent on high level of consumer
demand—many old industries "sick" and couldn't economically recover a
lot
In textiles and coal, lots of overproduction and competition that
made workers' pay get cut as
§
○
1928-9: sales lagged, inventories rose, factories cut output,
unemployment rose
Didn't help either that the rich were getting richer
§
Reinforced by concentration of productive capacity and financial
power among but relative handful of really big corporations
They became quasi-public institutions that established prices
and directed investment—>consequence for millions of
Americans
□
Also cut hours, spread work, tried to avoid round of
competitive pricing
□
Couldn’t afford to keep excess workers even part time□
§
○
•
Adolf Berle and Gardner Means: 2 intellectuals of Roosevelt administration
Argument: Corporate officials "administered" prices, oppressed workers,
ignored shareholder interests—>if the power they held was illegitimate,
workers, consumers, government regulators should intervene to
restructure wage-price relation + make corporate decision-making more
democratically accountable
○
•
These intellectuals' ideas showed up w/ establishment of National Recovery
Administration (NRA) which tried to restore prosperity during first 2 years of
New Deal
Didn't want laissez-faire economics, wanted to codify American capitalism
by promoting a bunch of industry "codes" that would put a floor under
wages and prices, and a ceiling on hours and effort
○
•
Labor's voice essential to industry self-regulation—only they really knew
business conditions and could enforce what they wanted
•
Section 7a of NRA: required "employees shall have the right to organize and
bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing…free from
interference, restraint, or coercion of employers"
•
Goal: better distribution of wealth for wage-earners who make a lot of what
consumers demand
•
Consumption, Security, and "The American Standard"
New Deal took new consumer culture of 20th century and made it a political
project
Wanted to politicize private nightmare of the shame and fear of
unemployment that people had
○
•
Communists and Socialists had a bunch of marches and stuff to try to bring
attention to these issues and have everyone look to the state for a solution to
them—>New Deal relief programs—>active sense of citizenship—>more people
looked to Washington to help them realize their American Dream
•
People wanted job security first—>Roosevelts administration did what they
could to try to achieve this
•
Post-War slump—>Roosevelt returned to this theme again + insisted on a
"Second Bill of Rights" that would provide citizens w/ right to a job, medical
care, education, housing, decent income
•
This security consciousness became so widespread that even opponents of the
New Deal tried to appeal to this
•
Industrial Democracy
This was the second great rationale for state-assisted birth of mass-unionism
during Great Depression
•
To many of the people who became unionists during 1930s and 1940s, New
Deal and new unionism represented a higher standard of living + doorway that
would help them get to democratic promise of American life
Security could help them challenge illegitimate power
○
•
Political culture celebrated all these rights: Jeffersonian world of free speech,
democratic participation, masterless autonomy
•
But this is what the corporate world and industrial municipalities actually had:
autocracy, obedience, social submission/respect
Supported by legal precedent and business practice of the past
○
When confronting employers, workers had no permitted rights for free
speech, assembly, or petition—>many would be fired, blacklisted, or
forced out of town—violation of nation's democratic norms
○
•
Industrial democracy of John L. Lewis:
Based on republican sense of democratic governance
○
People who believed in this wished they had "industrial jurisprudence",
constitutionalization of factory governance, growth of two-party system
that put unions and managers on equal footing
○
•
There was a lot of upheaval from workers in a bunch of industries in summer
and fall of 1934
Their walkouts usually took flavor of general political strike and these
upheavals usually led by radicals
○
But these strikes got the attention of the government to want to find a
resolution to labor question through politics
○
Upheavals came at a time of transition
American leaders of politics and enterprise celebrated a society
that's formally democratic and individualist
Political rhetoric usually devalued idea of self-organization
along class/interest-group lines
Did so by saying that conflict and instability happened
because of internal corruption, outside agitation, or
alien ideologies
®
Example: how during and after WWI, being 100%
American meant that you supported anti-socialism,
anti-immigrant efforts of vigilante groups
Union organizers and radical agitators usually
made to kneel and kiss the American flag to prove
their loyalty to the nation and its institutions
◊
®
□
§
○
•
Contrast upheaval to 1930s where liberals, labor, and left successfully captured
the flag during the 1930s
FDR successfully manipulated symbols of national pride and identity with
his fireside chats, parades, etc.
People began to feel more connected to their government and
symbol of Blue Eagle heightened feelings of national unit and
national mobilization
§
○
Union movement leaders used this to their benefit
○
•
National banner came to symbolize power of newly assertive federal
government and kind of ethnically diverse Americanism new unionism and New
Deal sought to build
•
The Wagner Act
Industrial democracy promised a bunch of things
Generate industrial citizenship demanded by so many workers and
reformers
○
Also procedure for dispute resolution
○
Sought to bring commodity of ordinary world: informed and willing
consent
○
How arbitrator William Leiserson saw collective bargaining
○
•
New Deal effort to encourage collective bargaining represented psychologically
sophisticated technique for social integration of employees and their enterprise
•
Sumner Slichter saw collective bargaining as helping to routinize and challenge
social conflict by "introducing civil rights into industry…" (36)
•
To this generation of people, New Deal represented normative social order
establishing new constitutionalism within American factories and mills (36)
This kind of hope was put into the Wagner Act (36)
○
•
Wagner Act
Like a "Magna Carta" for the labor movement (36)
○
Radical legislative initiative—meant to put in place permanent set of
institutions within womb of private enterprise, which offered workers a
voice (sometimes even a club) to resolve their grievances and organize
themselves for economic struggle
○
Guaranteed workers right to select own union by majority vote, strike,
boycott, and picket
○
Listed a bunch of "unfair labor practices" by employers
○
Established National Labor Relations Board
Would hear employee complaints
§
Determined union jurisdictions
§
Conducted on-site elections
§
○
Now management was legally obligated to negotiate with unions
○
Goal of setting this up: getting rid of employee organizations that were
dominated by management
Banned management participation in or encouragement to a union
§
Proscribed proportional representation (so no more than one
unions can represent workers in a given trade or company)
§
○
•
Wagner Act proponents accepted the fact that society had class divisions
structuring society and its workplaces
•
The Labor Movement and Its Divisions
In order for Wagner Act to have real social and political meaning, US needed a
working-class mobilization of a lot of power and strength
Worried that Supreme Court would declare Wagner Act unconstitutional
just like they had recently done with the NRA
○
Large employers thought this law unenforcable—>ignored it and fought
union organizing efforts
○
•
Meanwhile, leadership of AFL unwilling and unable to wage necessary figh
Preferred craft unionism
○
No comprehensive strategy for organizing semi-skilled production
workers who made up most of workers in great mass-production
industries
○
Preferred "exclusive jurisdiction" where seek to organize only a few of the
workforce in each factory, mill, or construction site
○
•
There were union schemas which usually gave unionism "professional" feel—>
opened door to white- and gray-collar workers
Sometimes they would use the word "guild" instead of union to make
joining have more appeal to working class
○
But craft unions like this were usually quite an exception
○
1930s AFL: patriarchal and racist—>greeted immigrants and unskilled
Southerners with disdain
Preferred old order
§
There were lots of prejudices against workers who wanted to
organize and if their abilities to even organize
§
○
•
1930s had "culture wars"
New Deal made shop-floor citizens of Eastern European Catholics, African
Americans, French Canadians, and migratory Appalachians have a position
of deference (submission) and subordination to old German, Irish,
Northern Protestant elie
○
New unions w/ all their radical Jews and anticlerical Catholics threatened
lifetime of social capital and ethnic privilege built up by those whose
outlooks more ignorant and relating to church
○
•
There were cultural and racial fissures of 1930s and they still exist today but
along different lines
•
Trade unionism requires compelling set of ideas and institutions to give labor's
cause power and legitimacy
"class consciousness…is 'made,' not 'given'" (43)
○
•
Leadership
President Lewis (of United Mine Workers) and President Hillman (of
Amalgamated Clothing Workers) both industrial unionists who thought
organization of all workers most effective basis for growth of labor's power in
mass production industries
Also broke with AFL—perfect time to unionize industrial workers + push
New Deal toward kind of social democratic politics and policies they
favored
○
Thought this could help multiply membership, economic power, and
political clout
○
•
These two presidents and few like-minded colleagues thought that any mass
organizing effort would have to take place under banner of new Committee for
Industrial Organization outside old AFL framework
•
Lewis wanted to organize labor movement by industry instead of by craft•
Industrial unionism essential to defense of American democracy and republican
virtue
•
CIO success for the next 2 years had a lot to do with their ability to tap energy of
thousands of grassroots activists while providing national coordination and
leadership than enabled new unions to confront multi-state corporations
•
Need radicals to organize a big trade union movement
Even though they had the Wagner Act, most workers didn't do anything—
defeat might threaten the little job security they had managed to achieve
○
Only those radicals who saw organizing project as part of collective
enterprise + unions could help build a new society could hope that
hardships they endured might bring them political and social rewards
○
•
Radicals couldn't do this alone though
New unions began to recenter Democratic party's electoral base: more
workers and voters energized by the promise of industrial citizenship
○
•
Roosevelt's 1936 campaign rhetoric was borderline anticapitalist
But it helped him align himself with aspirations of wage earners and small
property owners—>got the popular vote
○
Now, urban working people made up core of new Democratic electorate
○
•
There were some "Little New Deals" that transformed company-tow politics of
scores of industrial cities in New England, Pennsylvania, and the Midwest
•
CIO! CIO! CIO!
CIO efforts to organize basic industries of America came to climax in what's
probably most significant work stoppage in 20th century American history: "sit-
down" strike at General Motors Corporation in winter of 1937
•
At this time, GM was
One of most sophisticated, largest, and most profitable corporations of US
○
It was a technically proficient organization
○
But their managers very hostile to New Deal and new unions
○
•
What autoworkers wanted
Defend health and dignity on shop floor
○
Job security during layoffs
○
Standard of living
○
Not as much about wages as it was about arbitrary supervision, economic
insecurity, dehumanizing "speed-up" characteristic of Taylorized mass
production in twentieth century
○
•
Foremen and other managers had right to discipline, fire, lay off, rehire at own
discretion
Corporation successfully resisted union and NRA efforts to make
"seniority" determine someone's promotion and recall rights
○
Said that they needed this kind of discretion to make keep operations
efficient
But workers saw this as actually a way to punish unionists and
reward others
§
○
•
By 1936, Flint, Michigan a huge GM company town
Mayor, police chief, 3 city commissioners, newspaper, radio station,
school officials all on their payroll
○
•
UAW's burden of conducting struggle w/ GM rested on same relatively small
group of committed activists who'd be important to union-building process in
other industries
•
UAW success had 2 reasons
Sit-down tactic stopped production
Tactic not new but they used it to maximize leverage of minority +
avoid conflicts w/ police + strikebreakers
§
Reflected legitimacy achieve by another kind of popular social right:
claim of so many workers toward their jobs and their livelihoods
(50)
§
○
The fact that labor's Democratic Party allies kept Michigan's powerful
militia forces from coming in and stopping them—this tactic was of
questionable legality
Didn't deploy national guard or army to evict strikers and restore
"public order"
§
○
•
GM and UAW-CIO reached settlement w/ signed contract on February 11, 1937
Remarkable victory
○
GM recognized union as sole voice of employees + agreed to negotiate w/
UAW leaders on multiplant basis—>union activists could now speak up,
recruit other workers, complain to management w/o fear of being
punished
○
•
Settlement transformed expectations of workers and managers alike across
industrial America
People used to be too scared to become active in this movement
○
Union membership grew + so many more people took part in industrial
action
○
•
There were a lot more sit-down strikes—>made headlines that influenced even
nation's most conservative elites
President of U.S. Steel raised wages + recognized CIO's Steel Workers'
Organizing Committee as sole bargaining agent for its employees to try to
avoid conflict w/ own workers
○
Also made Supreme Court endorse constitutionality of Wagner Act
○
•
But soon there was furious opposition from corporate adversaries, Southern
Bourbons, craft unionists, many elements of New Deal coalition
The unions would never again enjoy political environment as favorable as
that which transformed American work life 1934-7
○
•
Lichtenstein, Ch. 1: Reconstructing the 1930s
Wednesday, April 11, 2018 5:04 PM
Document Summary
New deal only seemed like it was alleviating the labor question because that was the way that people thought that they could structurally solve the crisis of. Thought that only way to solve this challenge was if democratic process given social + industrial meaning that finally breached the walls erected by property + managerial guardsmen >thought state-assisted growth + radical transformation essential to trade union movement. Master narrative pushed by nostalgic reaganites, contemporary managers, journalistic heralds of cyber revolution: there"s a divide separating our era from economic structures of depression decade and technology of mass production regime thought to dominate first half of 1900s. Union upsurge during 1930s happened when unskilled, assembly-line workers revolted against brutal and arrogant bosses. Argument: no point in unions today because they"re no longer useful in our computer-driven, postindustrial, post-fordist world. Lichtenstein"s argument: actually problems of 1930s and 1940s are still happening today.
