HIUS 113 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Industrial Workers Of The World, Craft Unionism, Sleeping Car
Document Summary
Hius113 lecture notes #6: class and cultural politics. 1860s: during civil war, top 5% owned 24% of wealth. Beginning of intensive government intervention to indirectly redistribute wealth: dip of graph was from taxation and social/social welfare policies (1940s-80s) More equal distribution of wealth: right hand side went back up. Even today, economic fairness is highly subjective. Union activists 1930s: union white policies: discriminate against race; white workers only, early af of l: discriminate against race and skill. Craft workers were recruited for this craft union. Industrial unions try to organize entire industry; craft unions organized specific crafts: exclusionary nature of unions. 2/3 of mexican workers worked in unskilled or semi-skilled occupations. Black union activists 1930s: sleeping car porters union: black workers worked as porters. Parallel to white unions: created their own unions since they were not allowed to join other ones.
