Speaker 1: Hi, and welcome back to part two of our double
Speaker 1: episode about the strike wave in the US during the
Speaker 1: Vietnam War. If you haven't listened to part one yet,
Speaker 1: I'd go back and listen to that.
Speaker 2: First Alamatina Happenalta or the larger, very largile there Larchild
Speaker 2: child chi Alamatina.
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Speaker 1: history link. In the show notes, we left off last
Speaker 1: time about to talk about the mass strike of US
Speaker 1: postal workers in the US posts work for the United
Speaker 1: States Postal Service USPS and are employees of the federal government,
Speaker 1: and so they were and still are banned from striking.
Speaker 1: Despite a Congressional commission recommending postal workers be given the
Speaker 1: right to collective bargaining in nineteen sixty eight, Congress itself rejected.
Speaker 1: Its workers got no pay increase at all from nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty seven to nineteen sixty nine, while their union did
Speaker 1: nothing about it. This meant that, counting inflation, they had
Speaker 1: real pay cuts of nineteen point five percent over this
Speaker 1: time period. In early nineteen seventy, they were eventually offered
Speaker 1: an increase of just five point four percent. Union members
Speaker 1: called for a ballot for strike action, which officials succeeded
Speaker 1: in delaying but ultimately couldn't prevent. A majority of workers
Speaker 1: voted to strike, and workers in New York City, without
Speaker 1: waiting for authorization from union officials, set up picket lines
Speaker 1: around post offices in the city.
Speaker 2: It was a wildcast strike, never supported by the unions.
Speaker 2: It was the largest strike of postal workers and in
Speaker 2: fact the largest strike of public employees that there had
Speaker 2: ever been. It started in New York Wish a few
Speaker 2: locals that decided to go on strike, and then spread
Speaker 2: and became extremely widespread in New York, and then within
Speaker 2: days people from all over the country began calling in
Speaker 2: and said we're going out too, We're going out too,
Speaker 2: and it became a strike that involved hundreds of thousands
Speaker 2: of people around the country. It grew out of near
Speaker 2: poverty conditions or actual poverty conditions that postal workers were facing,
Speaker 2: with many postal workers on welfare in order to get
Speaker 2: by and just thought a not read what was regarded
Speaker 2: as something that was acceptable if you were working. So
Speaker 2: the union completely opposed it ordered people to go back
Speaker 2: to work. They did not go back to work. Does
Speaker 2: National Guard was sent in. Ultimately, the United States Army
Speaker 2: was sent in. Twenty five thousand troops occupied the post
Speaker 2: office in New York. There used to be an old saying,
Speaker 2: when they send the military end to force the miners
Speaker 2: back to work. You can't dig coal with bayonets, and
Speaker 2: so the postal workers adopted the slogan you can't sort
Speaker 2: mail with bayonets. And from what we were told, the
Speaker 2: army went into the post office and started slarting mail,
Speaker 2: but it's not clear that the mail was better sorted
Speaker 2: after they went to work than it was before they
Speaker 2: went to work. There was not a successful military operation
Speaker 2: from the point of view of just getting the mail out.
Speaker 1: This unsuccessful military operation in breaking the postal strike was
Speaker 1: mirroring the unsuccessful nature of US military intervention in Vietnam itself.
Speaker 2: It might have been successful and that they got to
Speaker 2: troops into the post office, but it was not successful
Speaker 2: from the point of view getting the mail out of
Speaker 2: the post office. And there was essentially a fake settlement
Speaker 2: that was worked out between the union officials and the
Speaker 2: Postal service, and then the workers were told to go
Speaker 2: back to work and they didn't.
Speaker 1: By this point, the striant could spread to over two
Speaker 1: hundred cities and towns across the country.
Speaker 2: There became a complicated situation, and I don't want to
Speaker 2: go into all the details, but essentially there was a
Speaker 2: taskit arrangement that negotiations would not begin and tell the
Speaker 2: workers had gone back to work, but as soon as
Speaker 2: they went back to work, not only the Postal Service,
Speaker 2: but the President and both houses of the Congress agreed
Speaker 2: that they would make a major raise for postal workers
Speaker 2: and meet many of the other demands. And that's essentially
Speaker 2: what happened. The postal workers went back to work, but
Speaker 2: they created an independent organization and told the union leadership,
Speaker 2: if you don't have this settled in a week or so,
Speaker 2: we're just going to go back out, and we have
Speaker 2: the organization to do it. So they went back into
Speaker 2: the post offices, and the Congress passed the legislation necessary
Speaker 2: to give them a raise put him on a decent
Speaker 2: footing for the future.
Speaker 1: Congress awarded an immediate six percent pay increase to all
Speaker 1: government workers, with postal workers to receive an additional eight
Speaker 1: percent with a reorganization plan later.
Speaker 2: It was not everything that they wanted, but it made
Speaker 2: a huge difference in the power of the postal workers.
Speaker 2: There was a point at which the head of the
Speaker 2: Federal Employees Union AFGE said he was being overwhelmed by
Speaker 2: telegrams and calls from local unions all over the country
Speaker 2: who represented other government employees, saying, if the postal workers
Speaker 2: can do it, why can't we and demand that he
Speaker 2: called strikes for them, and that was part of the
Speaker 2: reason that management decided that the government decided it had
Speaker 2: to settle fast with the postal workers because damn thing
Speaker 2: was really threatening to get out of control. One of
Speaker 2: the most vociferous locals, he said, for demanding a strike,
Speaker 2: was one that organized the logistics for the American war
Speaker 2: in Vietnam. Now that doesn't mean that workers were striking
Speaker 2: against the war, but it meant that the demands that
Speaker 2: they be patriotic and support the war had lost the
Speaker 2: power and credibility to direct their action.
Speaker 1: In wartime, governments and national media typically denounce any kind
Speaker 1: of strike as an attack on the nation and say
Speaker 1: it's putting the troops, the war effort, and the country
Speaker 1: at risk. So any wartime strike is significant because it
Speaker 1: is seen and reported as an attack on the troops
Speaker 1: and the nation.
Speaker 2: It's certainly true in the context of the Vietnam War
Speaker 2: is that the strikes were portrayed as unpatriotic, as undermining
Speaker 2: the war effort, partially directly if they know we were
Speaker 2: producing things that were needed. Also, because inflation and the
Speaker 2: economic conditions, high demand for labor meant that if people
Speaker 2: struck effectively on a large scale, they actually were able
Speaker 2: to win substantial wage increases, and that was something that
Speaker 2: then the government blamed inflation on those ways increases. This
Speaker 2: in fact happened with the teams strikes that we'll probably
Speaker 2: get to here. It wasn't just not producing what was
Speaker 2: needed for war, but also adding to inflation, and inflation
Speaker 2: was of course actually caused by the war, but something
Speaker 2: that was portrayed as itself interfering with a successful prosecution
Speaker 2: of the war, and the United States actually established wage
Speaker 2: and price controls in the latter stages of the Vietnam
Speaker 2: War as a way of trying to prevent eWays increases
Speaker 2: above inflation.
Speaker 1: The next major dispute involved truck drivers in the Teamsters Union.
Speaker 2: One of the most powerful of American unions was called
Speaker 2: the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, and they were usually known
Speaker 2: as the Teamsters Union. It went back to the era
Speaker 2: of people who hauled freight using horses, a team of horses,
Speaker 2: and so they were known as Teamsters, and they were
Speaker 2: a very powerful union throughout the country, a very essentialized union.
Speaker 2: So the local groups had a lot of control and
Speaker 2: were both very important in terms of their numbers, but
Speaker 2: also very very important in the labor movement because their
Speaker 2: ability to tie up traffic to make the delivery of
Speaker 2: goods to factories difficult if they wanted to. Many many
Speaker 2: strikes were won by industrial workers, auto workers of other
Speaker 2: kinds of industrial workers because Teamsters refused to deliver across
Speaker 2: their picket lines. So they had a very important role
Speaker 2: in the labor movement and in labor solidarity. The Teamsters
Speaker 2: union was another case where the trade union leadership had
Speaker 2: been in cooperation with management to very extreme extent. The
Speaker 2: head of the Teamsters said that the Teamsers will never
Speaker 2: tie up American Free with a nationwide strike for example.
Speaker 1: This leadership then negotiated a new pay deal with management.
Speaker 2: The union leadership negotiated a contract for the essentially the
Speaker 2: central part of the country that was where all afraid
Speaker 2: for the entire country was in there and going across there.
Speaker 1: The agreement broke it between management and the union in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy gave pay increases of one dollar ten an
Speaker 1: hour over thirty nine months.
Speaker 2: The workers rejected it and began going out on strike
Speaker 2: and doing truckers blockades.
Speaker 1: Drivers in sixteen cities, including to lead you know Columbus,
Speaker 1: Kansas City, Milwaukee, Cleveland, Saint Louis, Atlanta, Chicago, and others
Speaker 1: walked out on wildcat strike and set up mobile picket
Speaker 1: lines to intercept drivers at key locations, for example, at
Speaker 1: crossings of the Mississippi River.
Speaker 2: Essentially, somebody would be come bringing a truckle on and
Speaker 2: they would pull the truck in front of them and say,
Speaker 2: essentially like roadblocks in a wartime situation. And then the
Speaker 2: workers who were driving the trucks through might say, yeah,
Speaker 2: I agree, this is great and enjoying them, or if
Speaker 2: they weren't crazy enough to do that, they might go
Speaker 2: back to their boss and said, oh, I can't go
Speaker 2: through there. They're threatening my life. You know, I'll never
Speaker 2: see my wife and choulder and again if you make
Speaker 2: me go through that trucker's blockade. It was not clear
Speaker 2: exactly what the balance of intimidation and support was, but
Speaker 2: it was predominantly support as we could tell.
Speaker 1: Still, that definitely was some violence. The New York Times
Speaker 1: reported that some trucks had rocks thrown at them, windows
Speaker 1: had been smashed, tires slashed, and air hose is severed.
Speaker 1: The mayor of Cleveland claimed that strike related violence had
Speaker 1: affected two thirds of all counties in Ohio.
Speaker 2: The West Coast companies said we can't get our trucks through,
Speaker 2: and the entire travel between the West Coast and throughout
Speaker 2: the country was largely cut off. This is an old
Speaker 2: tactic in American labor. It used to be called a
Speaker 2: flying squadron. It came in with the coming in of
Speaker 2: cars in the nineteen twenties and thirties. So you'd have
Speaker 2: a highly mobile team of workers and somebody heard that
Speaker 2: somebody was trying to break a strike. They would go
Speaker 2: to the location and put up a picket line, or
Speaker 2: you go and go and talk to people and say,
Speaker 2: you know, we're on strike, suaded them to join. And
Speaker 2: this was essentially a revival of rolling picket line strategy,
Speaker 2: and it was incredibly effective.
Speaker 1: The United Press estimated that overall half a million people
Speaker 1: were off work because of the strike. The national head
Speaker 1: of the union told members to get back to work,
Speaker 1: as did the Federal Mediation Service. Trucking companies then started
Speaker 1: getting injunctions against the strike. Workers in Saint Louis ignored
Speaker 1: an injunction for a month. In California, strikers instead called
Speaker 1: in saying that they were sick. Ten thousand strikers were fired,
Speaker 1: but workers responded demanding a full amnesty as well as
Speaker 1: ten days sick pay.
Speaker 2: The ultimate response was that the National Guard was called
Speaker 2: up in dozens of counties in Ohio and elsewhere in
Speaker 2: the Middle West to try to break the strike.
Speaker 1: Soldiers with helmets, trucks and m one rifles guarded roads,
Speaker 1: escorted trucks, and protected truck terminals. In some cases, strikers
Speaker 1: throwing rocks managed to repel police and National Guard troops.
Speaker 2: It was very unsuccessful. The just were not able to
Speaker 2: get people to start driving again or to let the
Speaker 2: trucks go through, and it ended up with the union
Speaker 2: going back and negotiating a new contract with a several
Speaker 2: times as large a wage increase as had been negotiated previously,
Speaker 2: and then the truck drivers went back to work.
Speaker 1: The strike ended up lasting twelve weeks and management had
Speaker 1: to accept a pay increase two thirds high than the
Speaker 1: one originally agreed to.
Speaker 2: It was very much in violation of the federal wage guidelines,
Speaker 2: and the impact of it was that other workers immediately
Speaker 2: began making demands for a similar kind of wage increase,
Speaker 2: and you had within a year major increases in the
Speaker 2: average wages for the entire country basically because of workers
Speaker 2: who were involded by the Keemsers wildcats. So it's a
Speaker 2: very interesting dynamic. Each of these is in some ways
Speaker 2: a unique situation, as most strike situations are, but certainly
Speaker 2: something that you could look at and learn some lessons
Speaker 2: from for the future.
Speaker 1: In contrast to the unofficial wildcat strikes, in nineteen seventy,
Speaker 1: workers at General Motors took part in an official strike
Speaker 1: called by the United Auto Workers' Union.
Speaker 3: The nineteen sixties is distinctive in that almost all the
Speaker 3: major strikes and labor struggles took place as wildcats and
Speaker 3: in opposition to union officialdom.
Speaker 2: And there's one big exception which we haven't mentioned, which
Speaker 2: was the General Motors strike, and that was the situation
Speaker 2: in which it was just about universally recognized that the
Speaker 2: purpose of the strike was for the union and the
Speaker 2: company to not this out of the workers, get them
Speaker 2: to be less feisty by making them be on the
Speaker 2: street for a month or two. And it was essentially
Speaker 2: a strike by unions and management against the workers. If
Speaker 2: this seems bizarre to you, you're right, but it's thoroughly
Speaker 2: documented in articles in the Wall Street Journal and a
Speaker 2: book called The Company in the Union at the Time
Speaker 2: that leaves no doubt that this is what was going
Speaker 2: on now.
Speaker 1: The GM strike is an unusual one, but it served
Speaker 1: an important purpose both for General Motors Management and the UAW.
Speaker 1: For the workers, they wanted more money and better conditions,
Speaker 1: and especially given the other disputes which were taking place,
Speaker 1: felt that they could win them. The UAW wanted to
Speaker 1: assert their control over the workers. More than ten percent
Speaker 1: of all agreements being made by UAW officials at the
Speaker 1: time were being rejected by rank and file members, and
Speaker 1: the recent death of the popular UAW leader Walter Royt
Speaker 1: had also resulted in increasing division within the union. For
Speaker 1: the company, they wanted to reassert control on the shop floor,
Speaker 1: and so they were happy for workers to blow off
Speaker 1: a bit of steam in a controlled fashion in order
Speaker 1: for workers to be able to get back to work
Speaker 1: and follow orders from management thereafter. So the intention was
Speaker 1: to have a prolonged all out strike. As one UAW
Speaker 1: official admitted to the Wall Street Journal quote, the guys
Speaker 1: go out on strike expecting the moon. But after a
Speaker 1: few weeks of mounting bills and the wife raising hell
Speaker 1: about his hanging around the house all day watching TV
Speaker 1: while she works, the average worker tends to soften his
Speaker 1: demands end quote. A strike would also unite different factions
Speaker 1: within the union behind their leadership against the common enemy management,
Speaker 1: So in September nineteen seventy, an all outstrike began of
Speaker 1: four hundred thousand GM workers across one hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: five different local bargaining units around the US. The union
Speaker 1: and management agreed that all local issues had to be
Speaker 1: resolved by the strike as well as the national ones
Speaker 1: in order to try to draw a line under all
Speaker 1: of the turmoil nationwide. But while UAW officials thought they
Speaker 1: could reach a national agreement with management in around ten days,
Speaker 1: rank and file GM workers were refusing to settle their
Speaker 1: local agreements. The strike started dragging on, and so General
Speaker 1: Motors even loaned the UAW ten million dollars to help
Speaker 1: cover the costs of the ongoing dispute. After two months,
Speaker 1: it started to look like perhaps the union management plan
Speaker 1: was backfiring, as the workers were so determined that even
Speaker 1: a long running strike wasn't demobilizing or demoralizing them. In
Speaker 1: the end, UAW leaders and GM management held secret meetings
Speaker 1: in which they agreed to just settle the national dispute,
Speaker 1: leaving many local issues unresolved, and so after sixty seven days,
Speaker 1: the strike inn did and workers won a thirteen percent
Speaker 1: pay increase. Like the car industry, most of the other
Speaker 1: major disputes that happened at that time were also in
Speaker 1: predominantly male industries like mining and trucking, but women were
Speaker 1: deeply involved as well in these working class struggles.
Speaker 2: The backstory here is that women flooded into the industry
Speaker 2: during World War two and then were largely pushed out
Speaker 2: again afterward, and there was an effort to return to
Speaker 2: the traditional male breadwinner concept of society and how the
Speaker 2: economy worked, But in fact it didn't happen. After they
Speaker 2: pushed back, they came back in larger numbers than By
Speaker 2: the mid nineteen fifties, there was a higher proportion of
Speaker 2: women in the workforce than there had been at the
Speaker 2: end of World War Two. However, they were concentrated in
Speaker 2: a very small number of occupations that were overwhelmingly women's work.
Speaker 2: The largest number who came in went to world and
Speaker 2: clerical occupations in sales occupations, stores and all salers, and
Speaker 2: the traditional women's industries like the garment textel industries were
Speaker 2: in the clawing in terms of numbers, and there was
Speaker 2: huge discrimination against women in the heavy industry jobs that
Speaker 2: they had briefly filled but then been pushed out of.
Speaker 2: So you had a growing number of women in the workforce,
Speaker 2: but concentrated in low wage jobs, but also in white
Speaker 2: collar jobs that didn't have traditions of labor organizing and
Speaker 2: resistance and didn't have in most cases the economic power
Speaker 2: that steel worker or garbage worker was believed to have.
Speaker 2: So you have also a labor movement that is almost
Speaker 2: entirely male in its leadership and not interested in most
Speaker 2: cases and organizing women workers. There are death and exceptions.
Speaker 2: For example, hospital workers in New York, social workers and
Speaker 2: above all teachers both male and female, engaged in very
Speaker 2: militant strikes, lots of arrest, city ins, and so on,
Speaker 2: but on a local basis, because the industries were generally
Speaker 2: organized on a local basis.
Speaker 1: For example, in July nineteen seventy, following a one day strike,
Speaker 1: fifteen thousand hospital workers in New York one pay increases
Speaker 1: of thirty dollars a week or twenty five percent, whichever
Speaker 1: was greater, and in November nineteen seventy three, around thirty thousand,
Speaker 1: mostly black and put a Rican hospital workers in New
Speaker 1: York walked out on strike, demanding the seven point five
Speaker 1: percent pay increase they were contractually owed. Nixon's Cost of
Speaker 1: Living Council was trying to cap pay rises at five
Speaker 1: point five percent, and so they blocked the increase, even
Speaker 1: though the hospitals were happy to pay it. Strikers defied
Speaker 1: a federal injunction and hundreds of thousands of dollars in
Speaker 1: fines until after eight days the government shifted and agreed
Speaker 1: for them to receive a six percent increase. Both struggles
Speaker 1: were important in the development of unions which persist today,
Speaker 1: like the Service Employees International Union SDIU.
Speaker 2: The forerunner to the large organizations of public employees. Service
Speaker 2: employees and teachers that we know today are back essentially
Speaker 2: the largest unions the largest numbers of workers in the
Speaker 2: labor movement, but it didn't manifest itself by and large
Speaker 2: in large strikes. However, the largest protests in American history
Speaker 2: was conducted by women, where we were at that time
Speaker 2: generally referred to as housewives, in the nineteen seventy three
Speaker 2: consumer meat boycott. I've talked about the inflation of that era,
Speaker 2: and the biggest piece of inflation was in food, or
Speaker 2: one of the biggest, and that was largely concentrated in very,
Speaker 2: very large increases in the quest of meat.
Speaker 1: The Nixon government had implemented price and wage controls, but
Speaker 1: he'd loosened them by this point, and Nixon had specifically
Speaker 1: stated that he didn't want price controls on food. Initially,
Speaker 1: the government advised people unhappy with the high cost of
Speaker 1: meat to instead eat fish, cheese, or just eat less.
Speaker 1: This predictably caused outrage.
Speaker 2: The idea of boycotting meat sprang up in a thousand places.
Speaker 2: For example, one woman who got outraged about it just
Speaker 2: started calling random numbers in the phone book and asking
Speaker 2: people what they thought about the price of meat. And
Speaker 2: then when many as the women she talked to said
Speaker 2: it's terrible and my family won't talk to me because
Speaker 2: I can't feed the meat anymore, or whatever, it was, swell.
Speaker 2: He held a meeting in a local bowling alley. This
Speaker 2: was in Staten Island, but the same thing was happening
Speaker 2: all over the country. No national organization, no call, no
Speaker 2: pre existing network beyond the very local level, and yet
Speaker 2: it became coordinated on a colossal national scale.
Speaker 1: Thousands of women protested in the streets, picket lines were
Speaker 1: set up outside supermarkets, and The New York Times reported
Speaker 1: that quote in some stores, militant women snatched cuts of
Speaker 1: meat out of their neighbors shopping carts and restored them
Speaker 1: to the freezer bins end quote. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: the paper pointed out that quote, in general, no external
Speaker 1: pressure was used or needed to enforce the don't buy
Speaker 1: movement end quote. Retailers reported that meat sales fell by
Speaker 1: fifty to sixty seven percent, and up to two hundred
Speaker 1: thousand meat workers were temporarily laid off.
Speaker 2: There was a gallup pol that was done immediately afterwards
Speaker 2: that asked did you participate in the meatboycutt and twenty
Speaker 2: five percent of family said yes, which is about fifty
Speaker 2: million people at that time. So this is really not
Speaker 2: anything that I'm aware of in American history that compares
Speaker 2: to it. Richard Nixon, a free market Republican, actually declared
Speaker 2: a freeze on the price of meat, and that was
Speaker 2: supposed to stop the boycott.
Speaker 1: On the eighth of April nineteen seventy three, Nixon was
Speaker 1: forced to reverse course and appear on TV to announce
Speaker 1: new price ceilings on beef, pork, and lamb to prevent
Speaker 1: them rising any further. The boycott was hailed by Time
Speaker 1: magazine as a quote triumph and the most successful boycott
Speaker 1: by women since Lysistrata, referring to the ancient Greek comedy Lysistrata,
Speaker 1: in which women try to stop a war by boycotting sex.
Speaker 1: While the boycott didn't reduce the price of meat as such,
Speaker 1: it had been going up by over five percent per month,
Speaker 1: and analysts predicted it would have just kept rising until
Speaker 1: at least July. So although The New York Times attempted
Speaker 1: to claim that the boycott had little impact, it does
Speaker 1: seem clear that it was successful in preventing prices rising further.
Speaker 2: Boycott actually ended because it had made its point. It
Speaker 2: didn't have a vehicle to go forward and have some
Speaker 2: kind of continuing impact, and probably exhausted what could have
Speaker 2: been achieved with that tactic. But it put the economic
Speaker 2: problems of American families and put what women's responsibilities at
Speaker 2: that time largely were front and center in the national dialogue.
Speaker 1: From all of these different disputes over the period of
Speaker 1: the Vietnam War. Jeremy thinks there are a lot of
Speaker 1: lessons we can take from them which are equally valid today.
Speaker 2: Let's learn from it that the relations between rank and
Speaker 2: file workers and unions can become truly antagonistic. Clearly there
Speaker 2: are situations at the opposite pole, and even in the
Speaker 2: nineteen sixties, the campaigns by teachers and social workers and
Speaker 2: hospital workers involved much more synergistic and positive relation. There
Speaker 2: are always going to be tensions in any organization between
Speaker 2: leadership and rank and file, but that shouldn't be confused
Speaker 2: with a situation where interests and practices have become completely opposed.
Speaker 2: There is a set of structural endemic problems with organized labor.
Speaker 2: I can only speak about the United States with any
Speaker 2: serious knowledge, and other places maybe different and similar in
Speaker 2: various ways. But in the United States, the principal orientation
Speaker 2: of unions, starting from the beginning of the twentieth century,
Speaker 2: has been to establish collective bargaining with their employers and
Speaker 2: to establish a stable bargaining relationship, and that has been
Speaker 2: reinforced by the rise of labor law starting in the
Speaker 2: nineteen thirties, which will use designed to allow workers to
Speaker 2: organize and bargain collectively, but also designed to create a
Speaker 2: structure that limited the scent to which workers were able
Speaker 2: to act on their own pursue what they perceived of
Speaker 2: their interest as opposed to operating within a tightly defined
Speaker 2: legal and institutional structure. And the reason that you get
Speaker 2: wildcat strikes and where you have workers opposing their union
Speaker 2: leaders is primarily because the unions, either because of their
Speaker 2: own structure and leadership, or because of governmental laws, regulations, institutions, policies,
Speaker 2: but for a variety of reasons, the unions are functioning
Speaker 2: in ways that workers don't perceive as following their interests,
Speaker 2: and they don't have an institutional handle electing new officials.
Speaker 2: Things like that don't prove not to be effective as
Speaker 2: a means of dealing with that situation. And when you
Speaker 2: get that kind of conflict of interest between workers and
Speaker 2: their concerns and the union leadership, official and institutional structure,
Speaker 2: then you get a situation where workers they either have
Speaker 2: to suck it up and accept the status quo or
Speaker 2: they find they have to organize themselves outside the union
Speaker 2: or quasi outside operate at one level of the union
Speaker 2: in order to oppose another level, make connections with workers
Speaker 2: elsewhere that are distinct from the ones that are mediated
Speaker 2: through the union officials, and find ways that they can
Speaker 2: utilize what they still have, which is a degree of
Speaker 2: power over production, and use those things to meet the
Speaker 2: needs that are not being met or are even being
Speaker 2: opposed by the union.
Speaker 1: So, in order to truly be able to assert our
Speaker 1: own interests, workers have to have our own forms of
Speaker 1: organization outside and beyond just the structures of union officialdom.
Speaker 1: This is still the case today, as for example, during
Speaker 1: the teacher strikes in West Virginia in twenty eighteen, union
Speaker 1: leaders agreed to a terrible deal without consulting members, but
Speaker 1: rank and file teachers had set up their own communication
Speaker 1: and organization networks on Facebook in this case, and so
Speaker 1: were able to collectively decide to continue the strike until
Speaker 1: they got an offer they were actually happy with. Some
Speaker 1: left groups often argue that these sorts of issues are
Speaker 1: just issues of leadership, and so by electing union leaders
Speaker 1: from their group or from other left groups, you can
Speaker 1: ensure members are adequately represented. But historically this is not
Speaker 1: what happened, as unions over this time period, such as
Speaker 1: the Auto Workers' Union, did have predominantly left leaderships, and
Speaker 1: the fundamental problems were the same.
Speaker 2: That's what's frequently a problem in is by and large
Speaker 2: you didn't have pattern. You had a number of caucuses
Speaker 2: might be called rank and file caucuses or the Caucus
Speaker 2: for Democratic Union, that kind of thing that attempted to
Speaker 2: address the situation by running candidates against union leadership. And
Speaker 2: they certainly in cases at least for a time, were
Speaker 2: able to have leaderships there were more effective on behalf
Speaker 2: of workers, but they were not able buy and large
Speaker 2: to break out of the fundamental limitations that the institutional
Speaker 2: and legal structure imposed.
Speaker 1: So even with left leaderships, unions still had a situation
Speaker 1: where they had contracts with employers with no strike clauses.
Speaker 1: So wildcat strikes by workers breached these contracts, putting the
Speaker 1: union in financial and legal jeopardy and potentially jeopardizing relations
Speaker 1: between union officials and the corporations in discussions elsewhere about
Speaker 1: gaining union recognition in additional plants. In the US, most
Speaker 1: unionized workplaces are union shops, known as closed shops. In
Speaker 1: the UK, union closed shops have been illegal for decades
Speaker 1: under European human rights laws, namely the right to freedom
Speaker 1: of association, now it's worth exploring the origins of the
Speaker 1: union shop in the US. They emerged during World War II,
Speaker 1: when employers and the US government wanted to ensure no
Speaker 1: strikes would take place. The unions, on the other hand,
Speaker 1: wanted stable dues paying memberships, and they didn't have this
Speaker 1: at the time. Typically, many workers would join a union
Speaker 1: during a big dispute and pay their dues to local
Speaker 1: union reps, but over time they would lapse so as
Speaker 1: an example, in nineteen thirty seven, after a successful wave
Speaker 1: of sit down strikes in the auto industry, over eight
Speaker 1: thousand workers joined the UAW in Lansing. By the following year,
Speaker 1: though only one thousand were still paying dues. Some unions
Speaker 1: would have representatives set up picket lines to try to
Speaker 1: collect dues from members, and often workers would even skip
Speaker 1: work on dues collection days to try to avoid paying.
Speaker 1: In the steel industry, absenteeism went up to twenty five
Speaker 1: percent on dues paying days. Also, initially, the Congress of
Speaker 1: Industrial Organizations the CIO Union Confederation agreed to a no
Speaker 1: strike pledge to support the war effort. After the German
Speaker 1: invasion of Russia in nineteen forty one, the Communist Party
Speaker 1: and their affiliated union officials also became strong supporters of
Speaker 1: the no strike pledge. But then workers had no incentive
Speaker 1: to be union members because the unions had promised not
Speaker 1: to fight. Unions as organizations therefore had a big incentive
Speaker 1: to support union shops with compulsory union membership. And as
Speaker 1: World War Two continued to try to ensure industrial peace
Speaker 1: and stop wildcat strikes, the National War Labour Board determined
Speaker 1: that only union shops quote would give labour officials the
Speaker 1: self confidence and firmness to deal with their members and
Speaker 1: enforce their contracts end quote, so they started being implemented
Speaker 1: on a wide scale through the introduction of so called
Speaker 1: union security clauses in contracts with employers. While the union
Speaker 1: shop structure does strengthen workers in some obvious ways, like
Speaker 1: ensuring that no non union workers are available to scab
Speaker 1: on potential strikes, it does also give unions a sometimes
Speaker 1: problematic role in managing the workplace along with the employer.
Speaker 1: For example, it means that when workers breach union rules
Speaker 1: and take wildcat or unofficial industrial action, unions can and
Speaker 1: do discipline them, and in a union shop, expulsion from
Speaker 1: the union means losing your job. This weapon was used
Speaker 1: many times against militant workers over this period. For example,
Speaker 1: in the US, in nineteen forty four, tire builders in Akron,
Speaker 1: Ohio walked out on strike in protest at a reduction
Speaker 1: in peace rates. The United Rubber Workers Union expelled seventy
Speaker 1: strikers and got them fired from their jobs. Then when
Speaker 1: other US union activists complain, they were expelled and fired
Speaker 1: as well. So this is just one example of a
Speaker 1: way in which legal and contractual frameworks bind unions as
Speaker 1: organizations to management, and how it can result in negative
Speaker 1: consequences for workers. From our current vantage point, at a
Speaker 1: time when levels of workplace struggles are at a generally
Speaker 1: very low level, it can be easy to forget that
Speaker 1: the interests of unions and their members may not be
Speaker 1: the same because often it's only in times of these
Speaker 1: really widespread, mass and intense struggles, like at the end
Speaker 1: of World War II and during the Vietnam War, that
Speaker 1: these internal divisions really become apparent. So it's important to
Speaker 1: look back at times like this to learn lessons on
Speaker 1: how we can really begin to fight for our own interests.
Speaker 2: One of the lessons we can learn from the Vietnam
Speaker 2: era is if we're going to starry a new labor movement,
Speaker 2: let's do it in a way that freeze us from
Speaker 2: some of those constrains, because we're going to have to
Speaker 2: act in ways that go outside institutional and leal constraints anyway,
Speaker 2: as the teachers' strikes have shown us. If we're going
Speaker 2: to have anything but individual, isolated workers dominated by powerful employers,
Speaker 2: if we're going to have any kind of collective response
Speaker 2: and ability for workers collectively to affect their conditions, we're
Speaker 2: going to have to go outside through constraints of American
Speaker 2: labor law and the established institutional patterns of trade unions.
Speaker 2: By luck out, by luck out, and luck out out.
Speaker 1: Well, that's it for this double episode. As always, we've
Speaker 1: got links to sources further reading, and eventually a transcript
Speaker 1: in the web page for this episode. We've also got
Speaker 1: a link where you can get hold of Jeremy's book
Speaker 1: Strike links in the show notes. We would highly recommend
Speaker 1: you get hold of this book because it's one of
Speaker 1: the best books ever written on the US workers movement
Speaker 1: in our opinion. It's available in our online store and
Speaker 1: you can get ten percent off it and anything else
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Speaker 1: if you appreciate our work, please do think about joining
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Speaker 1: to our Patreon supporters for making this podcast possible. Special
Speaker 1: thanks to Jamison D. Saltzman, Jazz Hands, Fernando Lopez Ojeda,
Speaker 1: Jeremy Kusimano, and Nick Williams. Our theme tune is Bella Chaw.
Speaker 1: Thanks for permission to use it from Disky del Sole.
Speaker 1: You can buy it or stream it on the links
Speaker 1: in the show notes. This improved episode was edited by
Speaker 1: Jesse French with original editing by Emma Cortland. Thanks for listening,
Speaker 1: Catch you next time.
Speaker 2: Lini monto belie