Customer Reviews

CIO, 1935-1955

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a very readable book. The author's sketches of the principal leaders of the CIO are diverting. I can't say I completely agree with a few of its arguments but the clarity of the narrative along with the far reaching and fair minded analyses of the topic overwhelms any of its flaws.

Zieger describes the very precarious state of the CIO in the late 30's. I was surprised to learn how extremely modest the victory of the United Rubber Workers was at the Goodyear Akron Ohio plant in early 1936. I always assumed it involved at least union recognition, increase in wages, etc. 10 CIO workers were shot dead and many injured by Chicago police in front of the Republic Steel plant on Memorial Day 1937. The police in that case opened fire without the slightest provocation as did the cops in Masillon Ohio who, in the midst of a wild shooting spree to break up a steelworkers gathering, killed 3. The Little Steel strikes were lost w/o gaining union recognition and anti-unionism at Ford's River Rouge Michigan plant was demonstrated by the ex-cons in Ford's security department who nearly beat to death Walter Reuther and Richard Frankensteen. The United Auto Workers was wracked by revolt against Homer Martin's incompetence at the same time the Reuther brothers, the communists and Richard Frankensteen fought each other and Martin.

Zieger notes that polls of the period showed working class support for government regulation of corporate wealth and protection for unions. But in 1938 one poll showed a preference of two-thirds of workers for the A.F of L's staid, conservative William Green over Lewis. Workers thought unions had too much power and supported efforts to clean leftist radicals from unions and restrict the constitutional rights of commies, etc. In particular most CIO workers were not at all supportive of the backing for African American civil rights that the federation's leader's expressed. This became particularly clear during the "hate strikes" of World War II when white CIO members struck or even rioted to protest desegregation or promotions given to fellow black workers. The leadership made reasonable efforts to oppose this racism according to the author. Such reactionary opinions of course made the workers vulnerable to manipulation by politicians seeking the cover of reactionary fear mongering in order to attack union viability.

Zieger covers the attempts by the CIO leaders to restrain workers militancy defense industries during World War II. Government agencies tried to restrain the growth of workers' wages in the interests of containing inflation. Many workers felt compelled to go on strike to contest this. The government ordered many defense companies to give the unions of their workers some form of security in return for which workers were expected to obey intense work regimens. The union leaders were supposed to make sure that workers were firmly focused on production tasks. Zieger notes the zealotry that unions led by Communists and fellow travelers showed in adhering to the no-strike pledge

The CIO really did not have much choice but to stick to the limits the establishment put on it. That is at least the author's conclusion That is to say the CIO had no choice but to stick to pushing for wage and benefit increases w/o really challenging corporate power while working to strengthen liberal Democrats in order to increase the welfare state and Keynesian economic policies. As the Cold War got under way, the CIO purged 11 of its communist inclined affiliates and the one million members belonging to those unions. The leadership centralized power in its executive committee.....The CIO leaders fervently supported the creation of the national security state and U.S. foreign policy; a few exceptions within the organization expressed criticism of actions like the overthrow of the Arbenz government in Guatemala in 1954. Beginning with their 1946 organizing drive in the South the organization downplayed its commitment to civil rights. Zieger describes the increasing bureaucratization of the CIO and dampening of rank and file activism as the Cold War got under way.

I'm most impressed with the author's portrayal of communists within the CIO. He notes that communist CIO leaders had some virtues. They had an admirable record in organizing African American workers and organizing biracial unions. Moreover according to the author, even among their harshest critics, Communist led unions had a reputation for honest administration, efficiency in gaining better wages and other benefits, an egalitarian internal structure, good cultural and educational programs, etc.

Zieger's portrayal of Communists in American labor in the main text is notable when contrasted with the seeming approval of the CIO's anti-communist purges he expresses in the book's conclusion. To Zieger it was important for the CIO to dissociate itself from people who supported Stalin's crimes (actually Communists tended to deny most of those crimes took place). It may have been a practical necessity given the environment of the late 40's to get rid of the Communists. But I think Zieger errs in trying to dissociate the purge from the processes that led to the CIO's increasing bureaucratization, the passivity of its rank and file and its support for military keynesian based economic growth. The American elite that the CIO was trying to appease opposed a CP presence in American unions not because CP members supported the murderous Stalin but because Communists were seen as a source of labor militancy. Moreover, speaking from my own very left radical perspective I don't see any virtue in choosing the United States over the USSR. Yes Stalin killed millions of people. But the world capitalist system that the United States has overseen since World War II has millions of victims too, from starvation and disease to say nothing of carpet bombing in Vietnam, Central American death squads, etc.

But the book is in the main well written and intellectually diverting. If only all labor history could be done as Zieger does this book.

Ziegler has done a masterful job in this history of the CIO from its inception to its merger - or surrender, if one likes - in coalition with the AFL. Mr. Ziegler himself has been been deeply involved in labor politics and organizing and knows his ground thoroughly, eminently qualifying him to wrote an overall history of the American labor movement at a critical time for both labor and America.

However (here it comes) I do disagree with certain key opinions he maintains throughout the work, specifically the isolation of Communist ("Stalinist") influence in the unions and their "realistic" adjustment to collective bargaining. While deploring the red-baiting of some union leaders Ziegler maintains that purging the Commies was the correct thing to do. Unfortunately it's not possible to have it both ways. The red-baiting was a conscious tactic - well-known in German Social Democracy, for instance - of dividing the labor movement while seeking "consensus" with employers. It was defended as the price for recognition, even if cost a million members and retarded racial integration for a generation. This "realism" cost the entire American labor movement, not only in the short term.

Labor's present stagnant condition is directly tracable to the cleansing of radical activists and emphasis on production over redistribution - as Ziegler does acknowledge. Justifying this divide and conquer strategy by reference to Stalin's crimes is mere rationalization: the majority of Communist activists were responding to their own conditions and saw no connection between themselves and Soviet policy. What this baiting did in fact was constrict freedom of organizing and narrowly moderate labor demands, its true intention. Ziegler argues that retaining Communist or fellow-traveling members would have exposed uinionism to backlash and reprisal - but would that have left labor any flatter on its back than it is now, via compromise and "bipartisan consensus?" Going down with a fight would have been preferable, in my opinion, to rationalized and self-seeking surrender.

Despite this essential disagreement with Ziegler, I will agree with the first reviewer that this book is well worth studying as a history of American labor and society, written by one directly engaged in the struggles of both.