Mass UnionismI. The Problem of Unorganized Workers
A. ExtentB. Reasons
II. The Birth of the CIOA. HistoryB. Strategy
III. Union explosionA. Radical nationB. The CIO organizes industryC. Sit-down strikesD. New UnionistsE. Craftsmen under pressure
IV. Reaction
Unorganized Workers• In 1932,
only 3 million out of 49M gainfully employed Americans belong to unions
Ford assembly line, 1928
Reasons for the Problem
• AFL ideology– Skill– Craft jurisdiction– Homogeneity & exclusivity
• Racism & racial antagonism– 85,000 black steelworkers
• Sexism and gender roles– Journeymen Barbers’ IU
• “Blithering liability”
• Nativism and ethnic division– Tobin (Teamsters)
• “Rubbish” Nativist union badge
The Congress of Industrial
Organizations• Amalgamated Clothing Workers
• United Mine Workers
• ILGWU
• Textile workers
• Mine, Mill and Smelting Workers
CIO leaders Sidney Hillman (garment), Francis Gorman (textile), and John L. Lewis
(mining)
CIO strategy
• Organizing Committees– Not unions– Centralized– Control
• Grass Roots– Build on
ethnicity– Communists
• Politics– Lewis and UMW
give $600K to Roosevelt New York City garment workers’ protest,
1936
Radical Nation• 1936 election• FDR polls 60.8% of
vote– Landon gets only
36.5%
• Inaugural, 1937– “One-third of a nation
…”
FDR meets farmer impoverished by drought
Campaign trail, August, 1936
Organizing Industry
• 4.7M workers strike in 1937– Electric– Steel – Rubber
Jones & Laughlin Steel, 1937
Sit-down Strikes
• 400,000 workers stage sit down strikes in 1937– 130,000 in
March alone
• In one year, UAW membership rises from 30,000 to 400,000
General Motors, 1937
New Unionists
• Textile Workers’ gains 100,000
• ACW gains 240,000
• ILGWU gains 140,000
• UE gains 90,000
• Sit down strikes among workers at Woolworth’s
ILGWU basketball teamNew Haven, 1937
Craftsmen under Pressure
• Competition forces AFL to be aggressive
• Uses Wagner Act to gain over 1M new members
Striking cabbies, 1939
Reaction
• South resists organization
• Little Steel strike fails– Chicago, Youngstown– Memorial Day Massacre, 1937
• Police kill ten strikers, disable nine, injure thirty
• Shift in political winds– Americans are tired,
frustrated– FDR: “A pox on both your
houses.”– Dems lose 1938 midterm
elections
ILGWU organizer tarred-and-feathered by Ford goon squad Dallas, Texas—1937