The 1920s and 1930s

Class 1

Labor Movement Issues in the 1920s and Public Policy

Administrative

• Reading for next class– “Atkins v. Children’s Hospital”– “Preamble to NLRA”

Review

• Competition among AFL, IWW and Socialists in the Progressive Era

• Growing importance of labor injunctions, despite passage of the Clayton Act

• Growth of protective labor legislation

• Post-war period, Red Scare and Boston Police Strike

Today

I. Developments in the AFL

II. Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters

III. Employer Approaches

IV. Court Decisions in the 1920s and 30s

V. The Railway Labor Act

VI. The Norris-LaGuardia Act

I. Developments in the AFL

• AFL emerged unchallenged as the center of the trade union movement

• Philosophy unchanged

• Gompers died in 1924

• Replaced by William Green of the United Mine Workers

AFL and African-Americans

• AFL found it could do little to prevent discrimination by its affiliates

• Unions usually discriminated

• African-Americans often served as strike breakers

II. Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters

• Porters were almost entirely African-American

• Almost all worked for Pullman

• Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters decided to make an outsider president

• Chose A. Philip Randolph

Pullman

• Bargained with unions of white conductors but for blacks had company dominated employee representation plan

• When union began to organize, Pullman brought in Filipinos to replace them on best runs

• Fired those identified as BSCP ringleaders• Company refused to acknowledge BSCP at all

III. Employer Approaches

• The American Plan

• Another name for the Open Shop

• Promoted by the National Association of Manufacturers

Implementation of the American Plan

• Discrimination and blacklist• Yellow Dog Contract• Injunction• Espionage• Strike‑breaking• Use of Detective Agencies and private police

systems• Employer Associations• Company Unions

Welfare Capitalism

• Grew out of Rockefeller and the Ludlow Massacre

• Harmony of Interest Doctrine

• In theory provided industrial democracy, better working conditions and better living conditions

• Key was still employee representation plans

IV. Court Decisions

• Truax v. Corrigan S.C. 1921

• Duplex v. Deering S.C.1921

• Bedford Cut Stone S.C. 1927

Court Decisions Affecting African-Americans

• 1934 N.Y. court enjoined African-American boycott of shoe store

• 1938 Supreme Court finally upheld right of blacks to organize boycotts of businesses which would not hire them

V. The Railway Labor Act

• Issue of Federal Jurisdiction

• RLA was jointly drafted by labor and management

• Dislike of arbitration

Railway Labor Act

• Emphasis on worker representation through union's and voluntary bargaining

• Outlawed interference by either side in other's choice of representatives

• Required employer to negotiate with representatives of his/her employees

• Texas and New Orleans Railroad v. Brotherhood of Railway Clerks S.C. 1930

VI. The Norris-LaGuardia Act 1932

• Conservative legislation

• Intent clearly pro‑union and pro‑bargaining

• Philosophy clearly laissez‑faire

Provisions

• Most Important ‑ Made injunctions almost impossible to get from a federal court in a labor dispute

• Made Yellow dog contract unenforceable in federal court

• Protected specific self‑help measures

Next Time

• The National Labor Relations Act

1920s and the 1930s

Lecture 2

NIRA and NLRA

Administrative

• Reading for next class– Two articles on “War Labor Board”– “Women’s Work in California Airplane”– “Arbitrator Harry Shulman– For following class read the first two essays

Review

• Supreme Court decisions undermining workers and unions

• Court decisions undermining any attempts by African-Americans to improve their employment situation

• Railway Labor Act (1926)

• Norris-LaGuardia Anti-Injunction Act (1932)

Today

I. Roosevelt’s approach and the National Industrial Recovery Act

II. Background to the National Labor Relations Act

III. Philosophy and Approach of the NLRA

IV. Provisions of the NLRA

V. Impact of the NLRA

I. Roosevelt and the National Industrial Recovery Act

• Roosevelt’s Campaign Promises

• National Industrial Recovery Act – June 1933– Allowed industry to “collude” to raise prices– Provided for right to unionize

• Resulted in rapid union growth

II. Background to the National Labor Relations Act

• Senator Wagner’s bill

• Constitutionality – NLRB v. Jones and Laughlin Steel, SC 1937

• Based in part on the desire to eliminate organizational strikes

III. Philosophy and Approach of the National Labor Relations Act

Philosophy

• Unionism is good – unions and bargaining will help promote recovery and labor peace

• Workers should have the choice of which union, if any, represents them

• Workers have a right to withhold their labor

Approach of the NLRA

• Government will intervene to protect the right to unionize, the right to bargain, and the right to strike

• Government will limit employer anti-union and anti-bargaining tactics

IV. Provisions of the NLRA

• Heart of the Act is section 7

• "Employees shall have the right to self‑organization, to form, join or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing and to engage in concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection"

Provisions of the NLRA

• Created NLRB to oversee and enforce the Act

• Unfair labor practices

Provisions - ULPs

• Employers may not “restrain or coerce” employees exercising their rights

• No company unions

• No discrimination to discourage union membership

• Refusal to bargain

Provisions - Representation

• Exclusive Representation

• Uniqueness of this method

• Replaced the practice of employers avoiding unions where they could and recognizing them where they had no choice

V. Impact of the NLRA

• In the late 1930's the N.L.R.B. held 1000's of elections with millions of workers participating

• By 1941 company unions had all but disappeared

• Courts went on to enhance worker rights

Next Time

• The New Deal

• Racial Issues

• Developments in the Union Movement

• The “Sit-down” strikes

• Employers in the 1930s

The 1920s and 1930s

Class 3

Workers and Trade Unions in the 1930s

Administrative

• Reading for next time– For class after (World War II) do the two

readings on the War Labor Board and the one on Women’s Work in a California Warplanes Factory

Review

• National Labor Relations Act – the Wagner Act

• Rights of workers to organize, to bargain and to strike

• Right of workers to elect their own representative if they want one

• Unfair labor practices and their consequences

Today

I. The New Deal

II. Race at Work

III. Unions in the Depression

IV. CIO Challenge to the AFL

V. Sit-down Era

VI. Employers in the 1930s

I. The New Deal

• What was the New Deal?

• What programs did it involve?

• How successful was it?

• How did the depression end?

II. Race at Work

• In depression groups of whites tried to take over traditional black jobs and insisted employers fire blacks

• Much of New Deal accepted local segregationist practices

• National Industrial Recovery Act

• Impact of Wagner Act

Race in the Unions

• Blacks formed sharecropper unions in south but little success

• Unions affiliated with Trade Union Unity League often fought for equal pay for the races and the sexes

• 1934 AFL appointed committee to study racial discrimination

III. Unions in the Depression

• Depression initially crippled unions as a collective bargaining instrument

• A.F.L. ‑ Philosophy ‑ Depression forced reconsideration of voluntarism

Organizing Boom Begins

• 1880's and 1930's only two periods in U.S. history of “organization from below”

– Initially spurred by passage of N.I.R.A.– Industrial unions made greatest gains

• 1934 amendments to Railway Labor Act specifically included Pullman

• 1934 west coast maritime strike

IV. CIO Challenge to the AFL

• CIO began as caucus within the AFL – Committee for Industrial Organization

• Fought in AFL for industrial charters

• When member unions expelled from AFL, reconstituted itself as the Congress of Industrial Organizations

IV. CIO Challenge to the AFL

Basic Reasons for the split?

• Power

• Principles

• Personality

CIO

• Never really radical

• Never advocated voluntarism

• Believed in organizing across racial lines

V. Sit-down Era

• Wave of organizing strikes against employers who simply wouldn’t talk to unions

• Began in rubber industry and spread to automobiles and steel

Steel

• Organizing Campaign in steel begun by the CIO in 1936

• Steel Workers Organizing Committee

• Presence of communists among CIO organizers gave employers a propaganda tool

Little Steel Strike

• Response to offensive by the virulently anti-labor and reactionary president of Republic Steel, Tom Girdler

• Police fired on a peaceful picnic of strikers and their families in Chicago killing ten of them

VI. Employers

• Ignored the National Industrial Recovery Act

• Ignored the Wagner Act as long as they could

• Influenced state and local government

Mohawk Valley Formula

• Encouraged by N.A.M.

• Systematic campaign to oppose union organizing and strikes

• Important to understand most of this was illegal

LaFollette Civil Liberties Committee

• Reported on 1933‑1937

• Found employer tactics involved frequent total disregard for legal and constitutional rights of employees

Next Time

• Labor during the War Period