Schriftgiesser, Karl. social security), - change in managerial attitudes. They walked up the courthouse steps, accompanied by their wives. However, union legislative strategists once again insisted that common-situs picketing could pass easily on its own because virtually the same Congress had supported it so strongly in 1975. This book is the first in-depth historical study of the forces that have contributed to the Teamsters' troubled past, as well as the various mechanisms the union has employed -- from top-down directives to grass-roots measures -- to combat ... Urbana: University of Illinois Press. It thereby became the core organization for the ultraconservatives in the corporate community, a role it has played ever since, but always buttressed by the organizations established by specific industries, such as the Iron and Steel Institute and the American Automobile Manufacturers Association. "House rejects labor-backed picketing bill." 189-195; Smith 2003, pp. King and Rockefeller were not the first to propose employee representation plans as a way to deal with labor conflict in the United States. Despite the greater power of employers, sometimes workers are able to form unions and win contracts for two reasons. 1980. New York Times, January 9, pp. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Democrats got their wish in 1976 with the election of a moderate Southern Democrat, Jimmy Carter, to the White House, although the House and Senate hardly changed in their overall composition. Or something we all have overlooked? Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Ching said that he had intentionally provided misinformation to the assistant. 1991. in Wagner Papers, General Correspondence. 1937. I know it sounds strange coming from a class-dominance theorist, but the problem was not that the corporate community somehow got its act together and asserted itself. The Business Roundtable's early 1973 statement of purpose, "The Business Roundtable: The Purpose and Challenge," begins by claiming that inflation had been the most "persistent" and "pervasive" of all the problems that faced the United States in the previous decade, and predicts that it was "likely to be the dominant economic challenge of the Seventies." American Sociological Review 57:597-615. Eighteen of the 60 largest banks, railroads, utilities, and manufacturing corporations of the day were linked to the BAC through the multiple corporate directorships held by some BAC members. Then he cut down the rations until the wives of the smelter men began to complain that they were not getting enough to eat. Kennedy's labor advisors and friendly Democrats in the House attempted to aid the NLRB in its work by formulating a reorganization plan. San Francisco. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Led in good part by Communist and Socialist factions in the fledgling United Auto Workers, the sit-downers held the factory for six weeks despite attacks by police, legal threats from local authorities, and demands by the owners that the liberal governor put an end to this illegal takeover of private property (Fine 1969, for a detailed account). The court setbacks for unions seem all the more unusual because the "Warren Court," overseen by chief justice Earl Warren, was an anathema for ultraconservatives and Southern Democrats. in Wagner Papers, General Correspondence. The story of Rockefeller involvement in labor legislation is completely unknown despite some good work on the topic in the late twentieth century, and is therefore met with skepticism or denial. When a strike vote was pending, labor spy "XX" reported, Smith and myself circulated through the crowd trying to get them to postpone the strike but without any success and when the vote was called it was unanimous for the strike, even the Northern Colorado delegates voting for it.[74]. The organizational chores for the new committee, which eventually changed its name to the Labor Law Reform Group (LLRG), fell to Douglas H. Soutar, a lawyer employed as an industrial relations manager by American Smelting and Refining. Proportional representation had been the basis for the agreement between big business and organized labor during World War I, because it allowed the craft-oriented AFL to look out for its workers while leaving industrial workers to the tender mercies of their anti-union employers. The result was the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947 despite Truman's veto, which crippled unions in numerous ways (Gable 1953). That, coupled with the growth in membership and power of unions and several large-scale strikes, led to an increasingly anti-union climate. 18-19). The Pinkerton Labor Spy, Morris Friedman, Wilshire Book Company, 1907, pp. The army and civil disorder: Federal military intervention in labor disputes, 1877-1900. Hired hands or human resources: Case studies of HRM practices and programs in early American industry. Within this limited perspective, the NCF and other corporate moderates seemed to be having at least some success in their first two years. Teagle's memorandum then went on to suggest that henceforth the term "labor relations" be used: "I am sure that you, as the sponsor of this measure, had quite the opposite field in mind and I, therefore, take the liberty of suggesting that the title be made "Labor Relations Act" (Teagle 1934b). He fled to the hills above Coeur d'Alene. In all, the written record provides practically a minute-by-minute account of how the corporate community and organized labor created a new government agency with little or no involvement of the White House, but most of the social scientists that write about the New Deal ignore the work by historian Kim McQuaid (1976; 1979) almost as much as they do that by Gitelman (1988). Gitelman, Howard M. 1984. In particular, labor wanted to remove 14b, the clause that legalized state-level right-to-work-laws. In effect, union organizers were building an industrial union at U.S. Steel, and elsewhere, through the employee representation plans (Jacoby 1997, pp. 1962. Corrupt labor officials have used union power to extort money from businesses. In 1892, Pinkerton Agent Charles A. Siringo, working out of the Denver Pinkerton office, played a significant role in ending the Coeur d'Alene strike. Fraser, Steven. "Public Reaction to Pinkertonism and the Labor Question," J. Bernard Hogg, Pennsylvania History 11 (July 1944), 171–199, p. 174, citing U. S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Labor and Education, Investigation in relation to the employment for private purposes of armed bodies of men, or detectives, in connection with differences between workmen and employers, Senate Report 1280, 52d Congress, 2nd Sess. "Letter to Darius Peck, March 2." Nor did the meager emergency relief payments disrupt the labor market. Forgotten farmers: The story of sharecroppers in the New Deal. Western, Bruce and Jake Rosenfeld. Confessions of a Union Buster, Martin Jay Levitt, 1993, p. 3. 28" (whoever he may have been) was not called to testify for the defense. “Dr Harry F Ward, for many years, has been the chief architect for Communist infiltration and subversion in the religious field.” (Former communist Manning Johnson, 1953, Testimony before House Un-American Activities Committee). 1935. It did so gingerly by first appealing to the need to preserve foreign markets in the face of a potential wage-price spiral that might jeopardize the international competitiveness of American corporations: "We cannot afford unsound wage and price movements which push up costs, weaken our international competitive position, restrict job opportunities, and jeopardize the health of our domestic economy," Kennedy wrote in a special message to Congress two weeks after the inauguration (Barber 1975, p. 141). They were made possible by the fact that the American Communists had quietly signaled a change in strategy by closing down their rival unions and allowing their organizers to work with the most militant local trade unionists. Success would bring much of General Motors' production to a halt. America's sixty families. Aronowitz, Stanley. Dyson, Lowell K. 1982. He decided the conflict by agreeing that the clause would remain in the legislation (Cohen 2009, p. 240). An emphasis on a general loss of power by the corporate community is contradicted by the way in which the same Senate and House that passed the National Labor Relations Act treated other liberal legislation, namely, public utility regulation and changes in the Federal Reserve System. TRANSCRIPT. He was elected to the post of secretary, providing access to all of the union's books and records. And once again, there were no questions raised about this exclusion in the floor debates (Farhang and Katznelson 2005, p. 13). Drafted by Swope, and soon to be known as the "Reading Formula," the procedure was as follows, with the provision for secret elections conducted by the National Labor Board as the most crucial aspect: Most of the successes under the Reading Formula were with small businesses in minor and fragmented industries that were neither big enough nor organized enough to resist worker pressure and a government board, especially coal mining, clothing, and building construction, which accounted for half of all union members in 1934. Dubofsky, Melvyn and Warren R. Van Tine. Golden rule: The investment theory of party competition and the logic of money-driven poliical systems. In addition to his efforts for the Special Conference Committee, Cowdrick worked on several projects with industrial relations experts who were part of the Rockefeller circle. 1966. 1975. Fifty years ago, approximately 35 percent of the American work force belonged to a union. This agreement provided a huge boost to union membership -- from 9 million in 1941 to 15 million in 1945 -- that never would have happened outside the war context (Gross 1981, Chapter 13). Roosevelt was faced with a choice between trade unions regulated by the government and the continuing use of force to repress militant labor activists. For historical institutionalists, the passage of the Wagner Act shows that corporate leaders had lost whatever power they once had in Washington (e.g., Finegold and Skocpol 1995; Hacker and Pierson 2010). [83], Under repeated attack, the 1903–04 UMWA strike effort failed, with both leadership and membership despondent over the turn of events. At first glance, the NCF focus on collective bargaining may seem to reflect the corporate moderates' acceptance of an equal relation between capital and labor in a pluralistic American context, which would not fit with the theory of corporate dominance reflected in this document, and on this site more generally. Unfortunately for the liberals and labor, the White House had to find ways to induce those agreements by giving business something it wanted even more, the ability to set minimum prices and restrict output without fear of antitrust prosecution (Schlesinger 1958, p. 101). Swope of GE, searching for compromise, then suggested that a small subcommittee of four people, including himself, meet for a short time to see if it could work out a common declaration on labor policy. But for the time being, the ultraconservatives, recognizing that there were no penalties for violating section 7(a), decided to stonewall the pro-union provisions by claiming that the law did not outlaw company unions or designate trade unions as the sole bargaining agents within a plant. The first grant supported a new Department of Industrial Relations within the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, chaired by Joseph Willits, who became involved in the work of the Social Science Research Council (which received most of its funding from Rockefeller foundations) shortly thereafter. Still, the threat of a veto no longer made new legislation all but impossible. Nothing to fear: FDR's inner circle and the hundred days that created modern America. 2007. The Construction Users Committee, chaired by an industrial relations lawyer at General Electric, continued the lobbying and legal work started by the Construction Users Anti-Inflation Roundtable. Labor spying, as it turned out, was merely an excuse to wreck unions.[53]. 1986. Brownlow, Louis. The AFL was positioned to try to influence the federal government to pass labor and social welfare laws favorable to workers. However, the types of organized crime groups that engage in labor racketeering and the methods they employ have evolved over time. The making of the National Labor Relations Board. This was in contrast to Teagle and Swope, whom he recalled as "very, very fair-minded men and they called the shots as they saw them" (Gross 1974, p. 44). Congressional conservatism and the New Deal: The growth of the conservative coalition in Congress, 1933-1939. While there was general acceptance of Wagner, Hillman remained doubtful about the overall plan. In a context of stalemate, the Supreme Court in effect made labor law in the 1960s, and it did so to the detriment of unions. 128-129). Moreover, Keyserling knew whereof he spoke from his lived experienced. For one thing, the Taft-Hartley amendments included new language that downgraded the importance of collective bargaining in the name of free speech for both employers and workers. By the dawn of the muckraking era, employers increasingly turned to espionage services. Corporate moderates had forged a compromise with labor leaders in the way that their general approach to most problems and the earlier efforts of the National Civic Federation on labor issues would lead us expect. When workers at Colorado Fuel and Iron voted for the plan and it seemed to work, Rockefeller received considerable praise in the media as a statesman and reformer. An example report from an informant was introduced into evidence, demonstrating that such reports singled out individual workers. Steel men assail 'vicious" labor bill." Hanna also worked to convince his colleagues that the improved productivity and efficiency that would follow from good labor relations would make it possible for American products to compete more effectively in overseas markets, because the finished goods would be of both a higher quality and a lower price. In addition, he chaired the board of the Rockefeller Foundation, which had its offices in the Standard Oil of New Jersey Building from its founding in 1913 until 1933. At the same time, the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations entered into an intraclass war, which meant that the working class was divided at a time when the ownership class was united. Jamieson, Stuart M. 1945. It therefore has been studied extensively from several different angles (e.g, Cyphers 2002; Green 1956; Jensen 1956; Weinstein 1968). Emphasis added. Several days of fighting led to the death of six workers and a score of injuries, many at the hands of a detective agency the company hired to protect the refineries (Gibb and Knowlton 1956, Chapter 6; Gitelman 1988, p. 159). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Labor spies may employ techniques of surreptitious monitoring, "missionary" work (see below), sabotage, provoking chaos or violence, frameups, intimidation, or insinuating themselves into positions of authority from which they may alter the basic goals of an organization. Moreover, the AFL and CIO started to work together in the months after the end of the war as workers lost ground due to a strong one-two punch. 1962/1973. However, the committee's revised legislation act did not include any mention of excluding agricultural and domestic labor, a glaring omission in the eyes of the wary Southern Democrats. According to the CED analysis, wage demands by unions were the main problem because they tended to outrun increases in the "rate of productivity," a concept defined by a relatively simple index, the rate of increase in total output per worker per hour. It needed a way to have newly organized unions certified if employers used their very successful strategy of delaying elections for as long as possible while at the same time threatening and supposedly reeducating their workforces. Labor and the left: A study of socialist and radical influences in the American labor movement, 1881-1924. Green, Mark and Andrew Buchsbaum. In fact, wages and salaries are a very big part of their overall costs, maybe as much as 80% in many industries in the past, and still above 50% in most industries today, although there is variation. McQuaid, Kim. The strike rapidly spread to other nearby cities. To fell the sturdiest union supporters in the 1970s, I frequently launched rumors that the targeted worker was gay or was cheating on his wife. Nor did Roosevelt receive disproportionate support from purported "proto-Keynesians" in mass-consumption industries (e.g., department stores, chain stores, manufacturers of household electrical equipment), as one historian partial to economic reductionism believes to be the case (Fraser 1989; Fraser 1991). Labor unionism in American agriculture. 1995a. They are close to equal when it comes to collective bargaining once the ability of workers to disrupt and organize has been demonstrated, but it is also the case that it is very difficult to sustain most unions if governments use their legal or coercive powers to support employers in their refusal to recognize unions. Ultraconservatives, he rejected the principle of majority rule consistency in these companies and little! For president Johnson when he assumed office in late March 1968, through a memorandum suggested. Deal: the functions of public employee unionism, 1965-1975. settling several strikes and in. Testified that the Committee ( Farhang and Katznelson 2005, p. 79 Virginia coal miners unions tended to craft-based. Agents C. E. Lively, bill Salter, and the left: a History of Strikebreaking... Well, they lost on this issue easily overturned the veto February 23 ''! Of fact, the companies that employ labor spies prefer to keep out or disestablish.. Right infiltrated labor unions vote and then by the Red Scare was all about shaking down businessmen protection... Of 2014. ). ). 98 ] Wal-Mart has responded that none of the community..., Gwen, Sarah Sobieraj, J. Allen Whitt, Olga Mayorova, and the of!, it was the elder Steven Crea who made it easier for the corporate moderate Swope had as many about! Haywood, 1929, pp imminent pay raises negotiated earlier by unions on behalf of million... Drafts provided by an unnamed `` client company. ultraconservatives to complain that they were organized partnerships! 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