Union Organization

This paper will examine the organization of trade and labor unions during the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. The discussion will concentrate on the rise in union organization and activity during the 1930s and the union activity during the 1940s.

In 1919, after the First World War, union activity in the United States reached a new peak, with 3600 strikes involving some 4 million workers, including some 300,000 steelworkers. This represented 22% of the entire workforce and included a wide range of workers, from miners to policemen. Much of the worker unrest in the United States reflected the general unrest in the rest of the world at that time. Union leadership was buoyed by the Russian Revolution, which had occurred at the same time, and by the activities of the radical socialists and anarchists. Within the ranks of the union leaders were large numbers of "syndicalists," who sought to transform American society through the actions of the workers and bring about worker control of society. Many of these syndicalists gravitated towards the newly formed Communist Party in the United States.

The response of American industry to this new wave of activity and radicalism on the part of organized workers was violent. Employers hired private police and security, armed with clubs, firearms, and tear gas, to break up strikes and union meetings. The involvement of the leftist radicals only served to precipitate a "red scare" throughou

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rol of the job market. The mass-production workers, on the other hand, felt that breaking up the shop would destroy the solidarity which existed within the shop. This conflict was further fed by the relative inaction on the part of the AFL leadership; the new members felt that the AFL was not doing enough for them. Throughout 1934, strikes by unions in the auto industry and longshoreman along the West Coast ignored direction from the AFL, often forming unions led by members of the Communist Party. Members of these unions were frustrated by the conservative leadership of the AFL, which had affirmed its dedication to exclusionary craft unionism in its 1934 convention, and the NIRA, which tended to promote company unions and long hearings. The conflict within the ranks of the AFL would escalate until 1935, when many of the unions would formally break with the AFL and form their own organization of unions. In July of 1935, two months after the Supreme Court had declared the NIRA unconstitutional, President Roosevelt signed the Wagner Act. Not only did this Act repeat the assertions of Section 7(a) of the NIRA, that the government would support collective bargaining as public policy, it also set up the National Labor Relations Board
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Labor AFL, John Lewis, Depression Section, Steel Lewis, Communist Party, Soviet Union, Little Steel, President Section, Board NWLB, Wagner Act, wagner act, section 7a, john lewis, little steel, collective bargaining, union leaders, leadership afl, labor leaders, little steel companies, organized labor, labor movement, ford little steel, boston houghton mifflin, court declared nira, declared nira unconstitutional,
Approximate Word count = 3222
Approximate Pages = 13 (250 words per page)

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