Please write questions and, if you had strong opinions on any of the readings, comments for the following readings:
- Kristoffer Smemo, Samir Sonti, and Gabriel Winant, “Conflict and Consensus: The Steel Strike of 1959 and the Anatomy of the New Deal Order,” Critical Historical Studies, Vol. 4, No. 1 (Spring 2017).
- Kim Phillips-Fein, “Business Conservatism on the Shop Floor- Anti-Union Campaigns in the 1950s,” Labor: Studies in Working-Class History of the Americas, Vol. 2, No. 2, (2010).
- (Primary Source) “The American Standard of Living—How Can It Best Be Improved?” Radio Debate Between Senator Robert A. Taft and Walter P. Reuther, President, UAW-CIO
OPTIONAL READINGS:
- Joshua Freeman, “‘‘Common Requirements of Industrialization’: Cold War Mass Production,” in Behemoth: A history of the Factory and the Making of the Modern World (New York, 2018), Chapter 6.
- Ira Katznelson, When Affirmative Action Was White (New York, 2005), Chapter 3.
Across all of the readings this week, I got a sense that the 1950’s labor culture was one of a fight for stability, which is understandable in contrast to the Great Depression and World War II. Both the Phillips-Fein piece and the Smemo, Sonti, Winant piece, directly and indirectly, address the nuclear family structure and communities that were the norm during the 1950s.
It seems to me that at a certain point, through de-regulation and a right shifting public consciousness, the government’s relationship with capital solidified, leaving labor out in the cold. How did the waning memory of the turbulent prewar and war years allow the Government to slowly side more and more often with big industrial concerns over working-class people and families?
Would it have been possible for labor to have been more successful in bargaining for longer-term labor protections? When and how would the labor movement have needed to use their political capital in order to head off big industry? Was it inevitable through the deregulation of markets and continuing globalization that without labor taking a large imaginative leap in the demands they made, that they would end up on the “losing” side?
A fun one the Smemo, Sonti, Winant piece made me think about; How did the Nuclear family ideal and the specific picture of masculinity it painted coupled with working men’s dwindling power in the workplace, affect the labor movement at the time? We saw in the GM Strike video and know that women were in the workplace at this time, but it was also a high point in media and the public consciousness of the “housewife” image. I would love to learn more about how gender politics affected the labor movement at this time.
Below are my questions based on the readings. I don’t have any strong opinions on the readings, but I will note that Kim Phillips-Fein is a great historian. I really recommend her books “Invisible Hands” and “Fear City.” Also, the Taft-Reuther debate was very interesting and I hope we get to talk about it in class!
1. Based on the Taft-Reuther debate, do you think Reuther’s focus on purchasing power still has relevance in current labor struggles?
2. Taft is surprisingly anti-monopoly in this debate. Should the current labor movement be anti-monopoly or should the movement try democratizing large monopolies?
3. The UAW-CIO opposed Henry Wallace’s 1948 presidential candidacy. Why do you think they opposed Wallace’s third-party run?
4. Based on Kim Phillips-Fein’s article, how should the 1950s be understood in the context of labor history?
Side-note: Ira Katznelson is also great. His book “Fear Itself” on the New Deal is a must-read!
How did The Portal-to-Portal Act affect workers and what are some examples of how workers are subject to such treatment, for white-collar, blue-collar, wage, and salaried employees in the past and today?
Why was keeping 2-B the catalyst for the 1959 steel strike and why were wage increases secondary? How did management mitigate the effects of these two gains for the workers as a result of the strike?
Were there any attempts by agricultural or domestic workers to organize after they were shut out of New Deal pro-union legislation?
Also, I thought that Reuther made Taft eat his shoe. Seeing Taft forced to change his tune, with Reuther grinding it in at the end, was a pleasure. The Freeman piece was very interesting. Perhaps a class on labor in other countries would be a topic for consideration for the last class.
It was interesting in the reading of “Business Conservatism on the Shop Floor” the lengths that employers will go to, to prevent their employees from joining a union. You would think that you were joining a satanic cult. It’s the element of fear and intimidation that is really striking . The one story about the Rainfair Christmas party is classic. Because the employers were so scared about the union, they decided to grease the palms of their employees with bonus checks with a thank you letter, give out 5 year pins, pay for the Christmas party (which they never did before) and then, to top it off before they leave, give information out about the union hoping to count on their no vote and also a reminder and to come to work early the next day. Then they gave an example of the shops in the South where they warned the white workers not to unionize because blacks may become their supervisors and that the unions were pushing integration and then sent a picture around of a union employee dancing with a black woman for shock value. Then on the flip side of that, one company told the black workers if they union came in they would get fired. It was just all over the place but in the end, it was effective and fear won out at the end of the day. Makes me wonder if those same strategies would be effective today?
One thing that stuck out in the Phillips-Fein piece was the extent of the conservative backlash to the New Deal beginning in the 1940’s and specifically how a conservative takeover of the NLRB paved the way for bosses to employ new tactics to coerce workers into voting against forming a union. We see these tactics being used in offices today. If companies can threaten ( and act on the threat) of shutting down the company if the workers vote to form a union, how can labor win the propaganda war? Especially considering that many workers are small-c conservative, prioritizing stability over other political goals.
What role did Anti-Communist propaganda play in the resurgence of the conservative movement in the 1950’s? Where do we see it today?
How did the internal contradictions underneath the apparent political consensus of New Deal Order lead to its subsequent unraveling in the 70s? How did the events of the 1959 Steel Strike encapsulate the dynamics of this “unstable compromise” between labor, capital, and the state (Smemo, Sonti, and Winant; 2017)?
In the Phillips-Fein article, how many of the NAM anti-union tactics do you recognize? A good place to look is the Ranfair anti-union letters sent to employees: how familiar does this kind of letter look today? In other words, how much has changed and how much hast stayed the same in the realm of union busting tactics from the 50’s to today?
I read the “Conflict and Consensus: The Steel Strike of 1959 and the Anatomy of the New Deal Order,” and “Business Conservatism on the Shop Floor- Anti-Union Campaigns in the 1950s,” and it was interesting reading about the growing power the anti Unions movements in workplaces and outside as well as how unions responded to these changes. What was not surprising was how the government welcomed these shifts and embraced capitalism. The success of these tactics towards the deregulation and union busting was catalyst to the adoption of 21th century neoliberal politics. So I wonder, how could labor have organized better because it is amazing to see how quickly capital organized to strip any gains labor had made. The NAM aniti union tactics continued to be used today, and this industry has grown even stronger today, so what can the labor movement do to regain its power?
Question on “Prosperity Which Way?”:
1. Why is the argument against raising wages raising cost of living? (In other words, it’s like today when you tell someone that a $15 minimum wage would be cool and they say “yeah but then you’ll just see the price of everything else go up”. …Ok Gary, but $7.25 is making it a little hard to pay for basic things, can we at least try $15?)
-Reuther was also pushing price controls, to regulate prices. Where has that idea gone?
2. How do worlds like ‘socialist’ and ‘antifascist’ become a strong enough deterrent to be effective?
3. Is there a way to ensure “the little people” save if they were receiving enough money to have a surplus of it?
4. This debate was so civil and well-informed. Like actually based in numbers and ideas (policy). How do we get people to do this today?
1) The nuclear family was built up by capital, yet threatened by it as owners sought to increase production. To what extent has the family strengthened class solidarity and to whet extent has it limited it?
2) How has the anti-union rhetoric described by Phillips-Fein been transformed into a broader ideology and how has the success of that project shaped workplace politics today? How, if at all, can this ideology be defeated?
The readings often riles up an anger in me to continue to fight the good fight for labor. When I see a so call modern government like the U.S. be one of the leaders against labor it absolutely frustrates me. Laws actually created to block labor advancement such as the Portal to Portal Act of 1947 or terms has proven time and time again government is not for the working class. I think of the Janus versus AFSCME decision that decided a public employee should not be automatically enrolled in a Union and dues are voluntary can absolutely can feel as if the working class is not respected by this government. I think about Bernie Sanders running for president and how he was called a communist when really he was trying to give the average man a fair chance in this capitalist country. I look at big corporations like Amazon that practically wiped out small business during this pandemic but tripled it’s value. It has been clear for centuries that these money-hogging corporations run the world and government is complicit in their success.