Reference no: EM133280547

Question: In what ways were the union movement's political activities and disputes both successful and unsuccessful?

"Labor and the New Deal State"

"The role of labor in politics took on new significance with the New Deal. With governmental intervention in industrial relations on such a broad scale, the maintenance in office of a presidential administration and a Congress sympathetic to labor's aspirations became more important than ever. The limited objectives sought by the lobbying activities of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) back in the days when Samuel Gompers opposed minimum wages, old-age pensions, and unemployment insurance as "softening the moral fibre of the people" no longer met the needs of the nation's workers. The new industrial unions were especially dependent on the protection afforded them by New Deal legislation and were consequently ready to do everything in their power to assure the continuance of a pro-labor administration in Washington.
The pronounced swing toward more extensive participation in politics was not, however, entirely due to the desire for effective enforcement of the new labor laws. There was a growing awareness of the larger issues involved in the Roosevelt program. The New Deal became a rallying point for all the progressive and leftist elements in the labor movement. For former socialists, Roosevelt's policies promised the achievement of long-sought social reforms. Thus trade union socialists in increasing numbers deserted their old party for Roosevelt's Democracy or such halfway houses as New York's American Labor Party. Especially after a shift in Comintern policy in 1935, communists saw the New Deal as part of a broad anti-fascist Popular Front. Finally, for less ideological trade unionists, Roosevelt symbolized a type of democratic capitalism with a large degree of social justice.
It was natural that in this burst of political activity, the Committee for Industrial Organization (CIO) should be far more aggressive than the AFL. The liberal and insurgent spirit that characterized the CIO's advocacy of industrial unionism was carried over to the promotion of social reform. While it did not stray far from the old tradition of rewarding labor's friends and punishing its enemies, the CIO went much further in trying to make this policy effective. Unlike the AFL, which continued to uphold nonpartisanship in presidential elections, it supported Roosevelt vigorously.
CIO affiliates also realized more fully than the long-established craft unions in the AFL the extent to which all wage earners now depended upon government. The experience of the Great Depression had convinced CIO leaders of the need for additional governmental controls over the economic life of the nation.
"With the guarantee of the 'right to organize,' such industries may be unionized," Lewis wrote in regard to mass-production enterprises, "but, on the other hand, better living standards, shorter working hours and improved employment conditions for their members cannot be hoped for unless legislative or other provisions be made for economic planning and for price, production and profit controls. Because of these fundamental conditions, it is obvious to industrial workers that the labor movement must organize and exert itself not only in the economic field but also in the political arena."
To carry forward such a program, the CIO leadership established Labor's Non-Partisan League in 1936 and also supported the formation of the American Labor Party in New York. Both of these organizations campaigned for the reelection of Roosevelt, and sought support from both AFL and CIO members. The first president of the Non-Partisan League was George L. Berry, of the International Printing Pressmen's Union, an AFL affiliate. Many state labor federations and member unions cooperated with the league, although the AFL refused to have anything to do with it officially. The AFL's executive council was divided on political issues: William Hutcheson headed the Republican Labor Committee and Daniel Tobin the Democratic Labor Committee. While Green personally backed Roosevelt, he condemned the Non-Partisan League as a dual movement in politics, just as the CIO was allegedly a dual movement in labor organization."

"The AFL counteroffered readmission of the CIO unions to the parent organization, but without recognition of their extended jurisdiction. Lewis adjourned the meeting without giving a definite answer to this proposal, but he soon declared that peace was "impossible" because of the obstructive attitude of the AFL leaders, who were pursuing a policy of "rule or ruin." The truth of the matter was that neither side was willing to make real concessions. In spite of their professed acceptance of the need for labor unity, both the AFL and the CIO put their own interests first. Green continued to express his "passion for peace," but upon his own terms. Lewis was perhaps more frank in stating, "we must expand our movement.""

"War, Lewis, and the Election of 1940
The internal difficulties confronting labor were complicated in 1939 by more important developments on the world scene. The Soviet Union and Germany concluded a nonaggression pact in late August 1939, and immediately afterward Europe was plunged into war by Hitler's attack on Poland. The United States found itself menaced by the growing possibility of being drawn into the raging struggle against fascism, and popular attention was increasingly diverted from domestic problems to larger issues of foreign policy. The country divided into opposing camps on the overshadowing question of whether aiding the Allies could keep war from American shores, or whether the United States should seek to maintain a strict neutrality as the only means to safeguard its own peace.
As expressed in resolutions adopted by both the AFL and the CIO, labor entirely opposed American entry into the war but was prepared to support Roosevelt's policy of extending aid to the Allies and building up American defenses. There were differing viewpoints within union ranks, however. As among other elements in the population, trade unionists differed over foreign policy, while the CPUSA line had abruptly shifted from a united democratic front to absolute conformity with Soviet policy as demanded by Joseph Stalin. Communist trade union leaders now attacked the Roosevelt administration as vigorously as they had formerly defended it. With the approach of the election of 1940, the question of how labor would vote consequently became of utmost importance. In these circumstances, Lewis's position attracted nationwide attention, and he chose to play a strange, unpredictable role."

In this case Roosevelt delivered, although he left to Governor Murphy the actual implementation of a pro-labor policy. Less than six months later, however, another strike - the fierce struggle between the Steel Workers' Organizing Committee and "Little Steel" - caused a rift between Lewis and Roosevelt. When the CIO leader again turned to the president for help, Roosevelt replied, a "plague o' both your houses." After brooding over this rebuff, Lewis, in a radio speech on Labor Day, 1937, in which he enumerated the deaths and injuries suffered by workers in the steel industry, attacked the president

Pundits immediately tried to explain the cause of the rift between Roosevelt and Lewis. All sorts of explanations were offered, but the one that gained the widest credence, perhaps because it seemed most dramatic and made for the best story, concerned Lewis's political ambitions. According to Frances Perkins, the primary source of this tale, Lewis went to Roosevelt in late 1939 or early 1940 with a political proposal. A strong labor man would insure the full support, not only of all the labor people, but of all the liberals who worry about such things as third terms."
Perkins's tale, however, is one of those historical anecdotes that amuses people but misses the truth. Roosevelt and Lewis were indeed coming to a political parting of the ways in late 1939 and early 1940. But it had nothing to do with Lewis's personal political ambitions. In fact, after the Republicans had rejected his desire to serve as secretary of labor in the 1920s, Lewis neither sought nor wanted public office. Abundant historical evidence shows that what Lewis wanted from Roosevelt was not a position as his running mate, but rather more governmental assistance for the CIO and organized labor.
Much had already changed since Lewis had wholeheartedly supported Roosevelt in 1936. For one thing, the CIO had yet to recover from the "Roosevelt depression" of 1937/38. For another, the New Deal had lost momentum as a domestic reform movement. A congressional coalition of Northern Republicans and Southern Democrats thwarted the CIO's favorite legislation, and the president seemed unable or unwilling to do anything about it. For yet another reason, by 1940 Roosevelt was abandoning domestic reform crusades to concentrate on foreign affairs.

By 1940 he had developed strange political allies. On the one hand, communists now applauded Lewis as labor's savior, the one high union leader who resisted the nation's drift into an "imperialist" war. On the other hand, Lewis associated himself with the isolationist America First Committee and some of the most reactionary industrialists in America. To complicate matters further, in the spring and summer of 1940, Lewis delivered a series of speeches to groups of African Americans, left-wing youths, and senior citizens in which he suggested the need for a new third party. What Lewis might do in the autumn of 1940 puzzled everyone who observed the CIO leader's political machinations."

"As the tide beat against the labor movement, even the friends of labor, fearing that the upsurge against unions might lead to curtailment of basic rights guaranteed by the Wagner Act, called for greater moderation on the part of both AFL and CIO leaders. "The union movement in this country is no longer an infant requiring protection," the New Republic editorialized. "It has grown up physically, and if it is to conduct itself like a responsible adult it must be controlled by the same social discipline which governs the rest of the community."
How far the pendulum might have swung against labor can hardly be known. For new events suddenly interposed with dramatic force. On December 7 - the same day that the arbitrational tribunal announced that Lewis had been granted a union shop in the captive coal mines and while the House antistrike bill was pending in the Senate - Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. The United States was at war."