Politics of US Labor

Politics of US Labor PDF Author: David Milton
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0853455708
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 191

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Book Description
The alliance of the industrial labor movement with the Democratic Party under Franklin D. Roosevelt has, perhaps more than any other factor, shaped the course of class relations in the United States over the ensuing forty years. Much has been written on the interests that were thereby served, and those that were coopted. In this detailed examination of the strategies pursued by both radical labor and the capitalist class in the struggle for industrial unionism, David Milton argues that while radical social change and independent political action were traded off by the industrial working class for economic rights, this was neither automatic nor inevitable. Rather, the outcome was the result of a fierce struggle in which capital fought labor and both fought for control over government labor policy. And, as he demonstrates, crucial to the outcome was the specific nature of the political coalitions contending for supremacy. In analyzing the politics of this struggle, Milton presents a fine description of the major strikes, beginning in 1933-1934, that led to the formation of the CIO and the great industrial unions. He looks closely at the role of the radical political groups, including the Communist Party, the Trotskyists, and the Socialist Party, and provides an enlightening discussion of their vulnerability during the red-baiting era. He also examines the battle between the AFL and the CIO for control of the labor movement, the alliance of the AFL with business interests, and the role of the Catholic Church. Finally, he shows how the extraordinary adeptness of President Roosevelt in allying with labor while at the same time exploiting divisions within the movement was essential to the successful channeling of social revolt into economic demands.

Politics of US Labor

Politics of US Labor PDF Author: David Milton
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0853455708
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 191

Get Book Here

Book Description
The alliance of the industrial labor movement with the Democratic Party under Franklin D. Roosevelt has, perhaps more than any other factor, shaped the course of class relations in the United States over the ensuing forty years. Much has been written on the interests that were thereby served, and those that were coopted. In this detailed examination of the strategies pursued by both radical labor and the capitalist class in the struggle for industrial unionism, David Milton argues that while radical social change and independent political action were traded off by the industrial working class for economic rights, this was neither automatic nor inevitable. Rather, the outcome was the result of a fierce struggle in which capital fought labor and both fought for control over government labor policy. And, as he demonstrates, crucial to the outcome was the specific nature of the political coalitions contending for supremacy. In analyzing the politics of this struggle, Milton presents a fine description of the major strikes, beginning in 1933-1934, that led to the formation of the CIO and the great industrial unions. He looks closely at the role of the radical political groups, including the Communist Party, the Trotskyists, and the Socialist Party, and provides an enlightening discussion of their vulnerability during the red-baiting era. He also examines the battle between the AFL and the CIO for control of the labor movement, the alliance of the AFL with business interests, and the role of the Catholic Church. Finally, he shows how the extraordinary adeptness of President Roosevelt in allying with labor while at the same time exploiting divisions within the movement was essential to the successful channeling of social revolt into economic demands.

Class and Power in the New Deal

Class and Power in the New Deal PDF Author: G. William Domhoff
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804779023
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
Class and Power in the New Deal provides a new perspective on the origins and implementation of the three most important policies that emerged during the New Deal—the Agricultural Adjustment Act, the National Labor Relations Act, and the Social Security Act. It reveals how Northern corporate moderates, representing some of the largest fortunes and biggest companies of that era, proposed all three major initiatives and explores why there were no viable alternatives put forward by the opposition. More generally, this book analyzes the seeming paradox of policy support and political opposition. The authors seek to demonstrate the superiority of class dominance theory over other perspectives—historical institutionalism, Marxism, and protest-disruption theory—in explaining the origins and development of these three policy initiatives. Domhoff and Webber draw on extensive new archival research to develop a fresh interpretation of this seminal period of American government and social policy development.

Labor and the New Deal

Labor and the New Deal PDF Author: Louis Stark
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Collective bargaining
Languages : en
Pages : 40

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Book Description


The Woman Behind the New Deal

The Woman Behind the New Deal PDF Author: Kirstin Downey
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 1400078563
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 498

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Book Description
“Kirstin Downey’s lively, substantive and—dare I say—inspiring new biography of Perkins . . . not only illuminates Perkins’ career but also deepens the known contradictions of Roosevelt’s character.” —Maureen Corrigan, NPR Fresh Air One of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s closest friends and the first female secretary of labor, Perkins capitalized on the president’s political savvy and popularity to enact most of the Depression-era programs that are today considered essential parts of the country’s social safety network.

Class Struggle and the New Deal

Class Struggle and the New Deal PDF Author: Rhonda F. Levine
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780700603732
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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Book Description
In this reassessment of New Deal policymaking, Rhonda Levine argues that the major constraints upon and catalysts for FDR's policies were rooted in class conflict. Countering neo-Marxist and state-centred theories, which focus on administrative and bureaucratic structures, she contends that too little attention has been paid to the effect of class struggle.

A New Deal for All?

A New Deal for All? PDF Author: Andor Skotnes
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 0822353598
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 394

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Book Description
In A New Deal for All? Andor Skotnes examines the interrelationships between the Black freedom movement and the workers' movement in Baltimore and Maryland during the Great Depression and the early years of the Second World War. Adding to the growing body of scholarship on the long civil rights struggle, he argues that such "border state" movements helped resuscitate and transform the national freedom and labor struggles. In the wake of the Great Crash of 1929, the freedom and workers' movements had to rebuild themselves, often in new forms. In the early 1930s, deepening commitments to antiracism led Communists and Socialists in Baltimore to launch racially integrated initiatives for workers' rights, the unemployed, and social justice. An organization of radicalized African American youth, the City-Wide Young People's Forum, emerged in the Black community and became involved in mass educational, anti-lynching, and Buy Where You Can Work campaigns, often in multiracial alliances with other progressives. During the later 1930s, the movements of Baltimore merged into new and renewed national organizations, especially the CIO and the NAACP, and built mass regional struggles. While this collaboration declined after the war, Skotnes shows that the earlier cooperative efforts greatly shaped national freedom campaigns to come—including the civil rights movement.

Making a New Deal

Making a New Deal PDF Author: Lizabeth Cohen
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107431794
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 569

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Book Description
Examines how ordinary factory workers became unionists and national political participants by the mid-1930s.

The New Deal

The New Deal PDF Author: Michael Hiltzik
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439154481
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 514

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Book Description
From first to last the New Deal was a work in progress, a patchwork of often contradictory ideas.

Civilizing Capitalism

Civilizing Capitalism PDF Author: Landon R. Y. Storrs
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 0807860999
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 408

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Book Description
Offering fresh insights into the history of labor policy, the New Deal, feminism, and southern politics, Landon Storrs examines the New Deal era of the National Consumers' League, one of the most influential reform organizations of the early twentieth century. Founded in 1899 by affluent women concerned about the exploitation of women wage earners, the National Consumers' League used a strategy of "ethical consumption" to spark a successful movement for state laws to reduce hours and establish minimum wages for women. During the Great Depression, it campaigned to raise labor standards in the unregulated, non-union South, hoping to discourage the relocation of manufacturers to the region because of cheaper labor and to break the downward spiral of labor standards nationwide. Promoting regulation of men's labor as well as women's, the league shaped the National Recovery Administration codes and the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 but still battled the National Woman's Party, whose proposed equal rights amendment threatened sex-based labor laws. Using the National Consumers' League as a window on the nation's evolving reform tradition, Civilizing Capitalism explores what progressive feminists hoped for from the New Deal and why, despite significant victories, they ultimately were disappointed.

New Deals

New Deals PDF Author: Colin Gordon
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521457552
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 348

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Book Description
This book, an economic history of the interwar era, is the first major reinterpretation of the New Deal in thirty years.