The Last Great Strike (eBook)

Little Steel, the CIO, and the Struggle for Labor Rights in New Deal America

Ahmed White (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2016
416 Seiten
University of California Press (Verlag)
978-0-520-96101-2 (ISBN)

Infos

In May 1937, seventy thousand workers walked off their jobs at four large steel companies known collectively as ';Little Steel.' The strikers sought to make the companies retreat from decades of antiunion repression, abide by the newly enacted federal labor law, and recognize their union. For two months a grinding struggle unfolded, punctuated by bloody clashes in which police, company agents, and National Guardsmen ruthlessly beat and shot unionists. At least sixteen died and hundreds more were injured before the strike ended in failure. The violence and brutality of the Little Steel Strike became legendary. In many ways it was the last great strike in modern America. Traditionally the Little Steel Strike has been understood as a modest setback for steel workers, one that actually confirmed the potency of New Deal reforms and did little to impede the progress of the labor movement. However,The Last Great Striketells a different story about the conflict and its significance for unions and labor rights. More than any other strike, it laid bare the contradictions of the industrial labor movement, the resilience of corporate power, and the limits of New Deal liberalism at a crucial time in American history.

Inhalt

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Labor, Little Steel, and the New Deal

PART I
The Open Shop
1 • Like a Penitentiary: Steel and the Origins of the Open Shop
2 • They Should Honor Us: Work and Conflict in the Open Shop Era
3 • Sure, We Have Guns: The Open Shop in the Depression Era
4 • I Never Gave That Guy Nothin’:
The New Deal and the Changing Landscape of Labor Relations
5 • To Banish Fear: The Campaign to Organize Steel

PART II
The Strike
6 • The Spirit of Unrest: From Stalemate to Walkout
7 • In the Name of the People: The Incident on Memorial Day
8 • What Had to Be Done: The Struggle at the Mill Gates
9 • A Change of Heart: Corporate Power and New Deal Strikebreaking
10 • Let’s Bust Them Up: Last Struggles and Defeat

PART III
The Aftermath
11 • A Steel Strike Is Not a Picnic: The Anatomy of Failure
12 • Kind of a Victory: New Deal Labor Law on Trial
13 • Unreconciled: War, Victory, and the Legacies of Defeat

Conclusion: These Things That Mean So Much to Us
Appendix
Abbreviations
Notes
Bibliographic Note
Index

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 4.1.2016
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Geschichte / Politik ► 20. Jahrhundert bis 1945
• Themenwelt: Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► Neuzeit (bis 1918)
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Politik / Verwaltung
• Themenwelt: Wirtschaft
• Schlagworte: 1930s labor disputes • 20th Century America • 20th century labor movement • American History • American steel • Capitalism • deadly labor disputes • depression era labor • industrial labor • industrial labor movements • Labor history • Labor Organization • labor rights • labor riots • labor strikes of the 1930s • labor studies • last great strike • last major strike in america • little steel • little steel strike • new deal reforms • Social History • Steel Industry • union history • union rights • united steel workers • US labor movement
• ISBN-10: 0-520-96101-3 / 0520961013
• ISBN-13: 978-0-520-96101-2 / 9780520961012