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