The labor movement gained much influence in the Roosevelt administration

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.local802afm.org/publication_entry.cfm?xEntry=83585056


Snip: Furthermore, employers attacked labor’s right to strike and form unions by: issuing injunctions against striking workers (court orders banning strikes), requiring workers to sign “yellow-dog” contracts (in which the employee agrees, as a condition of employment, not to join a union), and petitioning mayors, governors, and presidents to call in militia, national guard, and armed forces to quell strike activity.

As industrial unrest began to tear apart the social fabric of our nation, progressive reformers and intellectuals who believed industrial peace as essential to democracy, joined labor’s cause.

The labor movement gained much influence in the Roosevelt administration, aligned with reformers like:

* Jane Adams and Florence Kelly, advocates for the advancement’s of women’s working conditions, the end of child labor and the rights of African-Americans;

* Pro-labor lawyers such as Felix Frankfurter, who recognized the need to address wealth inequality associated with the Great Depression;

* Staunch pro-labor public officials like Senator Robert La Follete of Wisconsin, who set up the La Follete Civil Rights Committee to expose techniques taken to undermine workers’ ability to form unions.

As the ideas of the progressive reformers and union leaders spread through the halls of academia, pages of scholarly journals, newspapers, and magazines, and opinions of legal discourse and public policy, a politicized culture developed that saw the restoration and protection of workers’ rights as essential to a democratic society.

[frazzled]

1. 36% of private sector workers were unionized by the 1940s

Today fewer than 7% are.

How can you compare 75 years ago with today? It sure as hell didn't happen during the Obama administration: union membership and influence has been declining since the 1970s. So while I totally appreciate the history of labor in this country (I live two blocks from the site of the Haymarket Riots and I vote at a union hall--the IBEW), I'm not sure what the post is supposed to impart, except for historical interest.

[MannyGoldstein]

2. Francis Perkins, our first woman Cabinet member

Secretary of Labor. Incredible person.