Is class is about an hour. Good. I will try to get to those points. These readings cover a lot of different topics in this period. Im hoping to pull together the essays, one deals with anticommunism and one with the internal dynamics in labor. The lecture today will pull those pieceses together. The big question is how do we go from the new deal and world war ii period we have been talking about the last couple of weeks and the c. I. O. Is growing and militants in all sorts of ways and workers are calling on the government to intervene to end other forms of inequities. How do we get from that to the current moment where we have the remnants of a bureaucratic, business friendly timid and conventional unit. How did the Labor Movement mature from this conflict model one of Labor Management peace. If we view that as maturation. What changes in the period in all different directions. Coming out of world war ii, everything was up in the air. The United States had won the war. It was very much up in the air what happens next. All the agencies that came into being. That would be their fate . The grem between Labor Management and government that helped us steer production and prices and output during the war, would that continue afterwards . Would there be ongoing economic planing with the rights of labor to organize be continued . Would the right to strike be returned after they gave it up during the war . What would be the fate of the race and gender shift that occurred during the period . Not just rosy the riveter going to work. What would happen and the various ways in which it fostered womens par tiss nation the workforce. How does the u. S. Emerging as a super power change the movement. The divisions within labor . We talked about how the nostrike pledge during world war ii had made it. There was a lack of understanding between workers and some of the members, member unions of the c. I. O. , the congress of industrial organizations and the biggest and maybe most important one was the boom itself. World war ii saved the United States from the great depression. It created this new arsenal of democracy. So much production was tied up with defense. How would industry be reconverted to peacetime uses and would there be inflation come out of the war as well as a new recession . Workers were very concerned and all people were concerned that measures designed to put money in workers pockets that had succeeded in helping to jumpstart the economy again would cause price increase a. F. C. The war. There is a few big characters in the story i want to underscore. On the labor side, it is these guys. Both on the cover of Time Magazine which shows you the stature they had received in their careers. On the left, phil murray who came out of the mine workers union, helped to organize steel and became the second president after john l. Lewis of the c. I. O. After 1940. And a rank and file member of the United Auto Workers in detroit took on a leadership position and then the cio in 1952. These basic industries that the cio had organized for the first growthcome the pattern for the Mass Organization of workers and the radicalization of the Labor Movement in the 30s and 40s, growth during world war ii and for the intoiate postwar period the 1950s. Following their unions is really the mold the rest of the Labor Movement follows in important ways. C wright mills called them, the this is a sociologist writing in new men of power. 1948. He acknowledged the growth of labors economic power and how that translates into political power as well. Their decisions about how to steer this movement ended up having huge effect on labor, race relations, every piece of American History from then until now. This is a critical turning point when all of those uncertainties that i went through at the beginning experience a certain amount of resolution. Labor came to the table with a set of ideas here and ideas that today are sort of hard to imagine. But in the mid 1940s were very mainstream. Coming out of the war, walter callr and Philip Murray for economic and the quality quality equality. Should build a series of Industry Councils and each one can come up with planning for steel, auto, whatever it might be to continue that prosperity into the postwar period. They wanted to continue the corporatist model of political economy instead of the completely unregulated freemarket that had existed right to the depression. Prior to the depression. About how toking reform Social Security to make it stretch further. How to add National Health insurance. How to foster full employment and a guaranteed minimum income for all working people. Wey talked about how do respond to automation and the growing technological advances that came out of world war ii and came up with various solutions where the state could help with that transition. Ed the fepc to bef continued. Color wanted to see support the government and continue to intervene in that area. The other one we dont know as much about is the office of price administration. Agency that enforced price controls throughout world war ii. They did it through an army of citizen volunteers who would go store to store and check prices and if someone was overcharging they would notify their member of congress in order to keep the prices down there they were supposed to be. We were all of these proposals coming out to make that kind of price control part of our National Economic planning as well. Are they still around . Note. They failed in both cases. In 1940 five and 46 it was not yet inevitable. These proposals were on the table and cap wide currency and even some chance of success. Hey wanted real wage increases that they would continue to have a bigger piece of the pie. Thats a bad metaphor because im going to use it later. That they would be able to purchase more and have the wages going up without prices going up. The mainher hand character is the National Association of manufacturers. Which coming out of world war ii launched a concerted counterattack against organized labor. They were worried about the power they had lost during the war and amount of oversight they had to undergo. Through these world war ii and new deal agencies that had engaged in economic planning. Free enterprise in new american terms. Much like we saw in world war i were labor flocks to that version of industrial democracy and puts forward an american plan to try to win back the nations loyalty, we see a similar story and world war ii. The National Association of manufacturers tries to paint unions as unamerican. They try to link them to communism. Successfully in the long run. And they try to reassert managerial power on the shop floor. They want the ability to fire and hire whoever they want. To discipline workers in any manner they see fit. To choose how much production takes place and at what speed. This wonderful book charts that process and the 15 year battle between business and labor as business tries to reassert control. Were these Companies Making money during the war . Yes. Hand over fist. Its about control and power to make those decisions coming labor the war they feared was on the march. That organized labor asking for this was just the beginning. Whats next, they want complete control over the firms. It went they wanted to stop 30 movement in its tracks of nonAgricultural Workers are union workers. Of the war they are very selfconfident. They have been very successful. They have one all sorts of improvements. Around 4. 5 Million People go on strike. At their various worksites. In every possible industry. Ost of them unionized trying to get higher wages to account for the fact that inflation had taken off. When the opa was dissolved, prices went up to dramatically. They were demanding larger wages to compensate that. Mushrooming of shopfloor militancy. Ordinary working people in the factories who throughout the war had agreed not to go on strike. That agreement with discipline. Coming out of the war they said, we did our part. Its our turn now to get some of the benefits. Sometimes those strikes were sanctioned by the unions and sometimes they werent. When they are not that is called a wildcat strike. An unsanctioned strike in which workers go off the job without permission of Union Leadership. Over thepened all place. Sanctioned strikes happened all over the place. Generations of unions called general strikes for general work stoppages in all industries. [inaudible] kind of. The National War Labor Board when they set this up target was an agreement that unions sign on to a new strike pledge. All but the United Mine Workers did so in exchange for the protection and involvement and mediation of that agency. Its most Immediate Impact was that there were all of these workers who were upset about one thing or another and you were ready to keep fighting and protesting and werent able to. Thats why it explodes as soon as the war comes to an end. The biggest and most influential of these many strikes within the United Auto Workers where for 113 days they struck General Motors. They demanded a 30 wage increase with no price alongse at all the past to the consumer. They understood the connection. Cant just get higher wages and then come charge more for cars. It would hurt them politically that other working people would be upset they had driven up the price of automobiles. They said we want the wages but no price increases. They had huge pickets, successful rallies. Were doing everything right. They were playing by the rules. They were orderly. By all measures it should have been a successful strike. General motors flatly refused to move from their bargaining position and when that happened Walter Reuther of the United Auto Workers called on management to open the books. For their accounts inspection by the union. That you cant actually pay us this much. Let the union look at your books and we will figure out how to make this worries rays work. He is asking for much more than a little bit more money. Managerial authority. Power to control production and how the company prioritizes spending. The itg a claim on also harkens back to that area cooperation and planning. He is saying lets let labor have a role. General motors really didnt want to do that. After 113 days union finally retrieved on some of their more aggressive demands. And it is forced to accept an no5 cent increase and expansion of the unions right to help run the company which is how they would have framed it. Were going to . Move on. Corrects what about the cost of . Iving can you explain why . Is goingst of living up everywhere. Because of the reconversion to a peacetime economy. Theres housing shortages and most of the major metro areas. We are coming back from a very first labor market to a much looser one so people are struggling to find as much work. They lost all of the overtime they were getting during the war. They suddenly had a lot less purchasing power for that reason, too. Changing politics. This strike wave happens all across the country and its largely the same story. The workers and their unions are forced to retreat. Theyre not able to get the broadvision they put forward realized. Wage increases but not much else. In most cases they sign oneyear contracts and both sides decide they will live to fight another day. One place that fight goes is into the political arena. Its 1946. Essentially there is a huge war between the cio Political Action committee and all of its allies who want to elect friendly democratic members of congress and the National Association of manufacturers and their allies who are advancing republican conservatives in most places. There is a general backlash against organized labor among middleclass voters. Slick pra very vague campaign involved and ultimately labor loses. A very conservative congressional delegation is elected. With the loss of lack ofke or the success during the strike led reuther and other labor leaders to rethink their strategy. Instead of tripartite Government Agencies they start to retrieve denounced the idea of a superstate agency controlling their futures. Reuther says i would rather bargain with General Motors than what the government does the government has an army. He realizes the changing political winds, they need to narrow their demands. They also attempt but are unable to extend these key planning ,gencies and of course the fepc the Agency Responsible for investigating and exposing employment discrimination based on race and sex and other factors. Especially africanamerican and mexicanamerican women workers are pushing really hard to try to extend those agencies. In all different venues within and outside labor. That doesnt succeed at the congressional level. Theyre not funded moving forward. 1946 thister of rightward shift has occurred in american politics and labors terrain is getting less friendly very quickly. One way in which labor attempted to respond to this was through operation dixie. Through continuing to organize in the south and continuing the battle that had been happening within the new Deal Coalition since the 1930s. Roosevelt had depended upon a very strange mixture of northern intellectuals and workers, people of color and southern maintain in order to his position and get his bills through congress. 1938 roosevelt had failed to displays many of his opponents among the southern democrats in various primary fights. Effort amongewed committed new dealers and labor liberals to try to take on the southern oligarchy and displace the conservative southern democrats by organizing a base for them on the shop floor. Organized workers could translate into organized Political Action and you could elect liberal politicians that would support an ongoing expansion of the welfare state. To huge amount of resources into operation dixie. At first it has dreams of building interracial unions across the whole south. They retreat from that as the Political Climate is getting more conservative. They decide they will accept jim crow. They will organize segregated unions. They will welcome black workers but they really wanted to focus on getting white workers in also. They thought by using this more constrained and tentative approach that they wouldnt be subject to quite as much backlash in the region and they ended up being wrong about that. I got all the backlash they got all the backlash anyway. They were accused of being supporters of social equality between the races, which was often interlaced with threats of interracial sex. In a few cases operation dixie steered away from that and into broader organizing efforts like this one which was the tobacco workers from winstonsalem. And were able to ranch out organize in other parts of North Carolina and the south. There are some exceptions. On the whole, operation dixie failed. In part because even though they limited their vision and chose not to challenge racism, they werent successful at attracting white workers or black workers. Maybe because of those things. Attempt to create a base for progressive politicians in the south stalls. Heres the other half of the onetwo punch. When congress convenes in 1947, they pass the tafthartley act. The wagner act this is the single most important piece of legislation you should know from this class. Its a revision to the wagner act, the National Labor relations act. That act and deliberately turns it against the working people it was designed to protect. That was the goal. The labor magna carta and turn it into what labor activists derided as a slave labor law. To make it so the institutions that were designed to help unions gain recognition, to prevent employers from firing workers for organizing unions, all of these would be replaced by a new set of more stringent rules. There is a long list of what they did. They banned the close shop. Had toes in which you join the union and get hired through the union before coming to work at a particular place. And it gave the states the power to ban the union shop where everybody was required to pay a fee to the union for representation. This is what creates the right to work laws. Right to work states, this is a byproduct of this section of the act which says states are allowed to limit the ways in compel workers to pay dues. If you are in a right to work state and texas was among the first, you can work at a firm that has a Union Contract and you dont have to join the union and you dont have to pay anything even though you get the benefits of their negotiating a contract for you. In not right to work states unions can sometimes negotiate around that. Thats all it does. We think that right to work often means all sorts of things andt antiunion environments legal restrictions. All it means is that one piece of union security. Force individual workers to pay union dues. By creating this setup for right to work laws and giving this encouragement to state that didnt have heavy union density, they helped to take the map of that moment and fix it into place forever. Areasst heavily unionized were in the industrial midwest, the northeast. The first places that go right to work are all of the interior south and southwest and eventually parks of the mountain west. It was a deliberate and successful attempt by manufacturers to try to limit the geographic spread of unions which would also limit their geographical power because they wont be able to elect people in texas, arizona and other right to workplaces. Sympathy strike. One thing workers