DEVELOPMENT AND GROWTH OF THE LABOR MOVEMENT

1
DEVELOPMENT AND GROWTH OF THE LABOR MOVEMENT

• Early Labor Issues
• Dependence vs Independence
• Ownership of the Tools of
• Labor
• Divergence of Interests

2
DEVELOPMENT AND GROWTH OF THE LABOR MOVEMENT

• Alternative Options
• Seek to Reclaim Ownership of their
• Tools
• Bargain for Better Terms

3
DEVELOPMENT AND GROWTH OF THE LABOR MOVEMENT

• Principle Obstacles
• Too Poor, Too Powerless, and Too
• Dispersed
• The Growing Impact of the Industrial
• Revolution

4
DEVELOPMENT AND GROWTH OF THE LABOR MOVEMENT

• Practical Remedy
• Collective Action

5
DEVELOPMENT AND GROWTH OF THE LABOR MOVEMENT

• The Perspectives Through Which Workers Perceive
  Their Issues
• Through Their Class and,
• Through Their Jobs
• ?
• Are These Approaches Compatible, Contradictory,
  or Mutually Exclusive

6
DEVELOPMENT AND GROWTH OF THE LABOR MOVEMENT

• Four Approaches of Unionism
• Job Oriented Bargaining
• Class Oriented Bargaining
• Job Oriented Ownership
• Class Oriented Ownership

7
HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE LABOR MOVEMENT

• Unions Where Slow to Develop in the
• United States
• Labor and Capital were Scarce
• Individual Bargaining Power
• Cheap Land and an Open Frontier

8
Four Rounds of Historical Development

• First Round - 1790 to 1815
• Local job-oriented bargaining
• Ended with economic depression

9
Four Rounds of Historical Development

• Second Round - 1820 to 1830s
• Local job-oriented bargaining
• Modest formation of job wide craft
• bargaining around class issues

10
Four Rounds of Historical Development

• Second Round - 1820 to 1830s
• Era of the Common Man
• Class-oriented political movements
• Significant public policy developments
• Ended with economic depression

11
Four Rounds of Historical Development

• Third Round - 1834 to 1837
• Job-oriented bargaining
• Rapid growth in craft union
• membership (300,000)

12
Four Rounds of Historical Development

• Third Round - 1834 to 1837
• Extensive development of roads,
• railroads, and canals
• Increased wage competition
• Beginning of national craft unions
• Ended with severe depression

13
The Ownership Approach

• The 1837 depression induced
• widespread social and economic
• dissatisfaction
• Spurred intellectual curiosity in
• alternative economic approaches
• Producer and consumer cooperatives
• Cooperative communities (communes)

14
Critical Lesson Learned

• Job-oriented bargaining works best
• Class wide objectives are best
• addressed in the political arena
• Ownership approaches are both
• impractical and too expensive
• Economic schemes that threaten
• property rights are unacceptable

15
Four Rounds of Historical Development

• Fourth Round 1850 - Present
• The Industrial Revolution was
• well underway in America

16
Four Rounds of Historical Development

• Fourth Round 1850 - Present
• The United States had become a
• major industrial power
• Unions came back and stayed -
• and grew with the economy

17
Arrival of the Federations

• 1866 - National Labor Union
• 1869 - Knights of Labor (strong class
  orientation)
• 1881 - American Federation of Labor (strong
  job orientation)

18
American Federation of Labor

• Strong emphasis on Job- Oriented bargaining
• Function as a coordinating body for member
  unions
• Establish a labor voice in the political arena

19
American Federation of Labor

• Established the unit of union membership as
  people having closely similar interests
• Belong to the same craft
• Avoid ownership ideas
• Make contracts with employers and
• scrupulously abide by them

20
Turn of the Century

• Frontier closed
• Rapid urban and industrial growth
• Wages became primary source of income
• Union membership grew from 250,000 in 1897 to
  more than 2 million in 1914 (primarily skilled
  workers)

21
Left-Wing Unionism

• Class-Oriented Ownership
• Marxist Socialism - 1876
• Promoted Violence and Rebellion
• Industrial Workers of the World

22
World War I

• Organized labor received official recognition
  as agents for workers
• War Labor Board established to settle labor
  disputes

23
World War I

• Labor-Management cooperation mandated by War
  Production Board
• Union representatives included on several
  government boards

24
Employer Opposition

• 1903 - NAMs Initiated an Aggressive Anti-Union
  Campaign
• Promoted the avoidance and elimination of union
  members in their workforces
• Company unions were introduced
• Growth rate of union membership declined after
  1903

25
Employer Opposition

• A combination of events carried union
  membership steadily downward from five million in
  1920 to less than three million in 1933
• Company Unions - Union Radicalism
• Economic Stability - Poor Leadership

26
Unions Take on Their Present Dimension

• The Great Depression
• Public policy support
• Lessons learned
• Focused on job-oriented collective bargaining

27
CIO and a Split Labor Movement

• Philosophical dispute arose within the
  hierarchy of the AFL over organizing strategies
  for mass production industries

28
CIO and a Split Labor Movement

• In the mid 30s there were large concentrations
  of unorganized semi-skilled and unskilled workers
  in the steel, auto, rubber, chemical, and
  petroleum industries.

29
CIO and a Split Labor Movement

• In 1935 a Committee for Industrial Organization
  was formed under the leadership of John L. Lewis
  (UMW) to undertake an organizing effort in these
  large industrial organizations with the intent of
  bringing them into the industrial union camp.
  They left the AFL in 1936 and formed the CIO

30
Unions Come to Steel and Autos

• CIO Won the organizational battle with the AFL
• US Steel gave up without a fight and brought all
  of the large steel firms with them

31
Unions Come to Steel and Autos

• Little steel held-out longer but eventually
  capitulated
• The auto industry was more resistant
• GM was targeted first, Chrysler was next, and
  Ford came in a very tough third.

32
Unions Come to Steel and Autos

• By 1939 union membership in the U. S. was at 9
  million and by 1955 it was in the neighborhood of
  17 million workers.

33
Reunification of Organized Labor

• The AFL and CIO where rejoined in 1955 - but
  not all of the family came home right away
• The IBT and UMW remained out until 1987 and 1989
  respectively.
• The UAW came back, left again in 1968, and
  returned again in 1981.