Whether labor unions are good for America is now controversial. A decade ago John Kenneth Galbraith’s analysis that unions were a necessary “countervailing power” was widely accepted, but recently corporate America has legitimated a new paternalism. Today liberals, radicals, conservatives, …
David Brody is a bright young scholar who has made a serious effort to bring a new perspective to the study of American trade unions. His views are contained in this group of essays, which might more appropriately have been …
Historically, this is a big year for the labor movement. A century ago Samuel Gompers, aged 31, helped to create the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions. That little group merged five years later with the American Federation of …
As a participant and survivor of the labor and radical struggles of the 1930s and 1940s, Bert Cochran has substantial credentials for undertaking this major study. The result is a fascinating, controversial, and important book. Cochran knows politics, trade unionism, …
The Polish workers fought for themselves and their families and won a victory for all of us. In coming issues of Dissent we will try to report extensively on the social basis and political meaning of that victory. Here (we …
The history of the labor movement in the South is varied and colorful, though little known. The first Southern unions were formed in the major cities early in the 19th century, especially in the building and printing trades. Shortly after …
The following is excerpted from H. W. Benson’s book, published last year by the Association for Union. Democracy cold entitled Democratic Rights for Union Members. Soon after George Meany became its president, the AFL embarked on a campaign against corruption …
This book has many virtues. It is a well-documented, well-written and lively study of one of the crucial periods in modern labor history: the triumph of the UAW-CIO over that citadel of the open shop, the Ford Motor Company, and …
This March Britain’s Labour government fell in a vote of no confidence after months of industrial strife. Ford machinists, truckers, local-authority manual workers, social workers and civil servants had battered and broken the government’s wage guidelines. Five years ago Heath’s …
The grass-roots organizing of the 1970s is an ambitious and at least partially successful effort to bring working-class women and men into the political arena as organized, self-conscious actors. The organizations that provide structure and direction to this “movement” are …
As we enter the 1980s it seems certain that working people in the auto towns will suffer the full impact of the latest round of recession and regional depression. With all their press puffery, the auto executives cannot hide the …
Mr. Randolph was a successful and uniquely gifted labor and civil rights activist because of his human qualities. His leadership flowed from the depth of his humanity—and from his understanding of the human condition. His modesty, his integrity, and his …
The notion that there is a New Class in our society—”class” for large groups like owners or workers; “new” because Marx did not include it in his grand schema—is an idea that has arrived. After nearly a century of episodic …
On this eve of the 1980s, American capitalism is in the midst of a crisis that bewilders the conventional wisdom of both liberals and conservatives. The nation is, in a sense, in a period resembling the years between 1919 and …
John Ford in Grapes of Wrath, Martin Ritt in The Molhv Maguires, Hal Ashby in Bound for Glory have all shown that the union movement can be powerful material for the screen. Yet we do not have in this country …
