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eraskin · Joined: 11 May 2010 Posts: 15

Please actively read Ch. 8 in From the Folks...

Respond in AT LEAST 100-200 words on our forum. Make sure to include a question for your peers. Here is one to get you started: How has the CIO changed since it's inception? What circumstances lead to its success?

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eraskin · Joined: 11 May 2010 Posts: 15

I really enjoyed this chapter for some reason. When I was in France we studied this time period in history class and we talked about the New Deal, and it’s interesting to notice the differences between what my history teacher had to say about it over there, and what Murolo and Chitty say. When we talked about it in France, it sounded as if the New Deal solved all our problems, and that it finally built a bridge between the working class, and corporate America. Finally giving the people a say. It almost seemed to create even more of a divide. Even though there where new regulations on companies, since they where not enforced, the companies where able to continue to run just like they used to.
The CIO seemed really interesting. They reminded me a little of the Knights of Labor except maybe a little less radical? Although equally politically involved, I think they did a better job of keeping their goals clear.
Do you think it is possible to have a union that is truly independent from any sort of political party?

lilycp · Joined: 07 May 2010 Posts: 20

Do you think it is possible to have a union that is truly independent from any sort of political party?

I don’t think its possible. Think of all the unions we’ve read about. They either end up supporting a party or creating their own party. To make any change in labor conditions the unions have to change laws and policy. This is very hard to do if they dont have political backing because the big businesses are so intertwined in certain parties of in government, so it is often in the unions best interest to support a party. For example, Roosevelt and the CIO. The CIO backed Roosevelt and in return he promised to support them in strikes and reforms.

in kind of a reverse of that is it in a politicians best interest to get the support of the unions or the support of the big businesses?

aegilman · Joined: 07 May 2010 Posts: 17

Is it in a politicians best interest to get the support of the unions or the support of the big businesses?

If getting the support of unions and corporations was mutually exclusive, which its not, then I would argue that in our present time, the 21st century, it is the politicians best interest to get the support of the corporations. This is because the companies can give greater monetary support to the political campaigns than the unions especially considering the very recent (january of 2010) ruling of the supreme court in the case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission which "ruled that the government may not ban political spending by corporations in candidate elections." Also although unions can support a candidate and have influence over their union members, they do not control their votes. The campaign donations from the corporations as well as the unions can be used to advertise as well as to do many other things to get votes. Finally we must consider that today in the United States union membership is only at about 12.5% while just private sector union membership is at just 7.5%. (Wiki article attached) I don't want to trivialize the union support for politicians though because it certainly carried Roosevelt in 1936 after the Second New Deal and even more importantly it changed the political landscape as the urban working class and African Americans began to identify themselves as Democrats.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/22/us/politics/22scotus.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_unions_in_the_United_States#Membership

My question is: Do you think that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 is more like the Roosevelt's Second New Deal which was based on more of a government partnership with workers rather than with businessmen like the original New Deal?

I would like to make a couple shout outs to some of the greatest happenings in U.S. Labor History and welfare in the U.S. in general...like the Wagner Act, the Social Security Act, and also this mass movement, lead by the CIO, dedicated to organizing the unorganized.

canderson · Joined: 07 Apr 2010 Posts: 23

Whatever the pitfalls of the New Deal, when I was reading I was wondering at what presidential tolerance (and encouragement) did for the unions. The UMW distributed those leaflets that said "The president wants you to join the union" -- I mean, it was just a few years ago that a different president was sending troops to shoot UMW unionists in Colorado. So if unions were thriving before NIRA, when unionists were organizing in the dead of night in fear for their lives, then the boom of union membership after the New Deal went into effect was to be expected.
But as usually happens (especially in labor history, it seems) NIRA hurt as well as helped. The mess it made of agricultural jobs, for one thing; reading about the farm workers and their families who camped out in mass pickets made me realize how skewed my view of agriculture before it was all automated is. I had always thought that farms were small and family-owned and mostly family-operated before the colossuses we have now. Or I thought the workers were all hired hands who were mobile or just not settled yet. How did the workers and their families live? Did they have houses on the farmland they worked? Or were they mobile? It seemed like the original New Deal didn't take their circumstances into account, but I didn't really see the book describe those circumstances.

As for the political question, I think I assumed that the workers who were drawn to form/join unions were those who saw how badly the current system worked and advocated a different one; hence all the socialist labor movements. Were there any pro-capitalist unions? (Pro-capitalist not in a pro-management sense, but for the system itself).

wquinn · Joined: 24 Nov 2009 Posts: 15 Location: undisclosed, MA.

I think the recovery act was 'a partnership between government and workers', as opposed to TARP which was more business oriented. seeing as it's purpose was to help individuals who had lost their jobs in the recession. Seeing as it included tax cuts for individuals, home-buyer's credit, invested in roads and bridges to create jobs, aid to schools to prevent layoffs, extended unemployment benefits... (by that description, it was more of a partnership between government and non-workers.) But my point remains. TARP was more like the first new deal. And i'm not saying it was bad, just because it helped banks.

My Question: Since it is (or seems) pretty accepted that world war II was what ended the depression, i want to know; did any of the government's actions help? which worked and which didn't?

Maxwell A · Joined: 10 May 2010 Posts: 19

As Alex suggests, this chapter is very interesting. I think that the New Deal represents a real turning point for labor in American history. The Wagner Act and the massive organizing of industrial workers in the auto and other industries represents real progress for American labor. The Roosevelt administration was one of the most pro-labor of presidencies. The Roosevelt Administration enacted other legislation such as the Social Security Act that greatly improved the lives of working class Americans. As a history of the New Deal by Arthur Schlesinger suggests, Roosevelt was deeply committed to providing economic security for all Americans. He also enacted business regulations like the Glass Steigel Act that regulated business for nearly fifty years.

Labor prospered in this period and large American corporations in the New Deal and beyond were forced to provide a living wage for their workers and good benefits. Contrary to Alex's point, the Roosevelt Administration shows that the American government does not have be dominated by big business. it itself was not. though it is a different question when examining that time period, then your views from 2010. in the 30's "what was good for GM was good for america"

I think that an interesting question is how to move from the current business dominated government to something resembling the New Deal. Do others think that we could recreate a New Deal?

jpark · Joined: 07 May 2010 Posts: 17

Because Great Depression was such an awful time, I think New Deal helped a lot socially, politically, and economically. New Deal was described in the book as “mixed bag of reforms and emergency measures, fix government regulation of bank and stock market, create jobs through public works projects, revive state and local relief programs” (pg192). Also as people have mentioned it above, Wagner Act definitely interested me too, but I found Social security Act and Works Progress Administration to be important. First, Scial Security Act was something that it was never done before. Even though the amount of benefit was not the much (excluding some people), it was a good start because this act was the very first step towards government taking responsibility for working people. And, WPA was another great method of creating working space for various people with their occupations. Of course, there are many other movements and events that happened which shift the whole society in a good way.
My question is: what are some of the differences between the system we have and what was done before(new deal) ?

jcho · Joined: 20 Nov 2009 Posts: 22

This reading was interesting in that this time was the one time when the US was seriously down. Answering to the question about some of the differences between the system, I believe that most of the acts which was presented in the New Deal is now not used (except for a few such as the act regarding the social security). The reason for this kind of change I believe is because of the drastic difference of situation of the US. The Great Depression was a time when the US was basically near elimination and it tested the efficiency of the government. The New Deal certainly met this challenge as it provided what it intended to, relief, recovery, and reform. Many acts which were presented during this time, as it was said before, really concerned itself on the fickle relationship between the workers and the government.
Should more of the acts presented during the Great Depression still be found today? Are they useless now?

gchai · Joined: 18 Nov 2009 Posts: 16 Location: In your closet

I think the new deals really helped america in terms of labor during the Great depression. It helped america in all aspects and it helped unemployment rates stay down. However the supreme court did strike down a lot of these, which could be arguably wrong

Is it in a politicians best interest to get the support of the unions or the support of the big businesses?
Well, I think it can go both ways, because the unionized people are the majority of workers, which translates to the majority of voters. On the other hand, big businesses do have money. They can pay off the politicians after they get into office OR they could put down a lot of campaigns to slander their name, wether it be media, or protesting.

One thing this reminds me of is that the word Politics is made out "Poli" which in latin means "many" and "tics" meaning "bloodsucking creatures".
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