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Unionism at High TideI. Working Class America
A. Blue-collar cultureB. The Risks of Respectability
II. Postwar ActivismA. Strike wave—1946B. The Rise of Reuther-ismC. Operation Dixie, 1946-50
III. Labor at the CenterA. Purge and MergeB. Growth and Clout
IV. Models A. Reuther-ismB. Bureaucratic UnionismC. Militant Conservatism
Blue-collar culture
• William Wyler– The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
• Frank Capra– It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)
Jackie Gleason
The Honeymooners
1955-6
The Limits of Respectability
• Race
• Gender
• Middle class norms weaken class-consciousness of workers
– Nuclear families v. work group
– More to lose through militancy
– Forget past hardships
– Consumerism erodes solidarity
Rehm family, Levittown, NY, 1951
Strike Wave—1946• 5,000,000 strike
• Wildcats
• General strikes
– Oakland
• Union strikes
– Coal
– Auto
• Walter Reuther
• “Open the books”
Youngstown steel strikers, January 1946
Operation Dixie
• Last burst of radicalism
• Southern textiles, tobacco, lumber, steel
• Failure– law, local government, coercion, race
Organizing outside factory, Muscogee, GA Anti-union poster
Purge and Merge
• Purge– Communists control
14 of 31 CIO unions, 1/3 of all delegates
– But only 15% of CIO members are Communists
• Merge– In February 1955—
AFL and CIO reach accord
Growth & Clout• By 1955, 1/3 of all
workers belong to unions
• Gain role in national government– “The New Men of
Power”– Arthur Goldberg
Reuther-ism
• Descends from model developed by Taylor, Brandeis, & Ford
• Fordism plus industrial unionism– Worker
participation– Consumerism
UAW President Walter Reuther
Bureaucratic Unionism • AKA, “service
unionism”
• Not concerned with organizing new workers
• Interested in preserving existing organizations, protecting members
AFL-CIO president George Meany
“Well, Kwusty”
Militancy without altruism
• International Brotherhood of Teamsters – Tough,
aggressive– World’s largest
union– 1.6 million
members
• Problems– Raiding– Corruption
IBT president, Dave Beck, 1957
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