HISTORY 144G Chapter Notes - Chapter 6: John Kenneth Galbraith, United Steelworkers, Industrial Revolution
Recessions negatively affected the steel industry a lot after like the 1980s
United Steelworkers of America went from 1 million to 200,000 in basic
steel + equal number in light manufacturing and services
○
By 1990s, US only industrial nation not self-sufficient in steel
○
•
Throughout era, recessions got worse and happened more frequently—>more
unemployment + less efficiency
Productivity growth fell so much
Became less than that of most of US's trading partners
§
○
Still economic growth but way less than it had been in the post-WWII
period
Families earned more but only because people started working way
more hours
§
Income inequalities widened
§
○
•
1970s + 1980s disaster for union movement—lost members + power
Losses mainly happened in old, unionized core of economy—factory
shutdowns
Heavily affected by international competition but even those
industries of manufacturing that didn't experience that competition
lost just as many members
§
○
•
Beyond Industrialism and Fordism
Explanations of this era's union decline + economic difficulty
Technics of production + character of market
○
Politics of society + labor movement itself
○
Post-industrialism
Daniel Bell: was just the latest stage in evolution of society
Perspective sustained by US census (more workers laboring in
service instead of manufacturing sectors)
□
In this type of society, production + business decisions
influenced by other forces
□
§
John Kenneth Galbraith: mature corporation part of comprehensive
structure of planning that is shaped by social goals + created by
growing public sector
§
Devalued anything characteristic of old order: production of things
in actual factories, various forms of routine service work, existence
of trade unions
§
○
Post-Fordism
Postwar Fordism didn't last long (where mass consumption and
production made to work in harmonious tandem)—cyberworld high
tech, greater intl. competition, cultural differentiation of product
markets undermined this production regime + consumption
patterns it depended on
§
Must accommodate to new world of "flexible specialization" that
required more highly educated workforce, rapid shifts in production
technology, smaller firm serving specialized markets, and creative
deployment of skilled labor
Meant radical shift if ideology and institutions□
§
○
•
"Globalization": And its Limits
Where working class and institutions still play animating, democratizing role
(from the text on 219)
•
Argues that analysts of this saw what would happen to trade unions + other
institutions that stood in the way of worldwide market dependent on how much
raw market forces were able to grow
•
William Greider: intl. finance capital=the thing that will punish nations,
companies, unions, politicians who try to hinder free flow of money, labor, and
goods
•
"reform" + "liberalization" now denote process whereby open market in labor
and capital replaces regulatory regimes that used to be in place earlier in the
century (219)
•
The left basically has to choose what kind of capitalism it's able to support •
From POV of labor mvt: vision of global, post-industrial, post-Fordist economic
world—>unions don't have their functional rationale + social legitimacy
Globalization of trade + transformation of productive tech on worldwide
scale—>more power/influence to anti-union critique
○
•
Globalization brought competition—>bad for unions
High wages made American manufacturing uncompetitive + union
requirements stifled creativity/generated inflexibility
High wages for unions—>wage differential between union/non-
union—>American managers wanted to put wages back into
competitive play
§
○
•
Globalization also mean new international laissez-faire that challenged a lot of
social-democratic arrangements and regulations
•
"Services are complements to manufacturing, not potential substitutes or
successors." (221)
•
Computer revolution blurred line between production of things + production of
ideas and services
•
Globalization in US has slashed blue-collar jobs in many older industrial
regions—it's cheaper for companies to pay for the laborers in other countries
than it is for laborers in US
•
Economies of countries not as globalized as it may seem—>national living
standards still highly determined by domestic conditions
•
For unions, there's a lot of plant-closing threats when they try to organize—>
unions lost more than 2/3 certification elections
•
"'globalization' is part of a complex dialectic that has certainly destroyed jobs
and communities in the United States" but it keeps struggling against decisive
managerial victory
Example: RCA
Began to search for labor early in 20th century: looked for low
wages, docile, quasi-rural workforce, abundance of young,
unemployed women
Looked to Eastern European women in Camden, New Jersey
and then farm girls from Bloomington, Indiana until both
groups unionized
□
Even Memphis, Tennessee African American workers
unionized
□
Moved to Ciudad Juarez where there was a bunch of rural
teenage women
They now had cheaper labor but eventually these
women began to rebel
®
□
§
○
•
Concession Bargaining: where trade unions surrender or give back previously gained
improvements in pay and conditions in exchange for some form of job security
Unions in US got greatest leap forward during Great Depression
Idea that unionism seen as working-class defending their rights against
forces let loose by the market
○
•
In most European nations and Japan, after 1973, unions went from being
politically and economically repressed to one which they had role to play in
center stage of politics
•
One of best places to look for why US's strong union movement declined is in
sectors of political economy that is pretty sheltered from international
competition
Their most significant difficulties showed up in construction industry +
municipal governance
○
•
Construction industry
Frequently short of workers for big commercial/governmental
construction projects
○
Industry wasn't "de-regulated"
○
1932: Davis-Bacon Act: mandated federal gov. pay "prevailing wage"
(usually union wage) on all construction
Contractor must hire set of local workers
§
○
Well organized
○
Usually used hiring halls maintained by powerful, politically well-
connected craft unions
○
Wages grew rapidly
Building trades justified this as function of boom-and-bust nature of
industry
§
Meanwhile union-shop contractors knew they could shift high-wage
costs onto government + big corporations who paid the bill—>
CUAIR formed
CUAIR (Construction Users Anti-Inflation Roundtable)
Big corporations w/ heavy construction budgets + some
of largest contractors
®
Said union shop was un-American
®
Wanted to crackdown on construction unions for them
to "open up"
®
Tried to remove Davis-Bacon Act + all state level
offspring of it, break monopoly of construction unions,
introduce Taylorist principles to building-construction
process, condemn craft unions out of step w/ tech
innovations/racial progress
®
□
§
○
Anti-union movement here was helped by the fact that construction
unions were beginning to get bad reputations esp. in liberal and even in
some labor circles—>"hardhat"—universal symbol for blue-collar social
conservatism, swaggering masculinity, racial resentment
○
Cultural and economic payoff unsubstantial: the still got positions of
political power, allowed craft unions to drag their feet when it came to
integration + advancement of African American men/women of either
race
○
But assault on craft wages and organization continued
○
Divorce between politics and industrial relations virtually complete
○
CUAIR transformed itself into Business Rountable (1972)
Set up a bunch of subsidiaries that hired only non-union labor
§
○
By the time that the recessions of mid-1970s and early 1980s hit, unions
had few allies on Left, Right, and in government—>lots and lots of de-
unionization
Percentage of union workers in this industry dropped, most
contracts renegotiated by craft unions included wage give-backs,
wages declined
§
○
•
Municipal labor problems homegrown
Urban deindustrialization, stagnant tax base, inflationary surge that
greatly increased how much money they were spending on infrastructure,
education, and welfare
Lots of municipal employees fired in the 1970s
§
○
They were overextended and over-manned—>needed to stop running the
city at the benefit of the employee if they were going to fix this
High levels of municipal services + adequate public-employee wages
= burdensome expenses—>had to decide what social services
would become part of new and higher social wage during the 1960s
§
Social wage pretty expensive—>public-employee unions exposed to
resentment of those who wanted to stigmatize social entitlements
that were newly legitimized during the last decade
These unions were scapegoats for urban working class
(incomes stagnant) + newly mobile bourgeoisie
□
§
○
Municipal anti-unionism even affected newly elected African American
officials whose empowerment was product of civil rights movement
The American Federation of State, County, and Municipal
Employees (AFSCME) linked cause of black sanitation workers to
legacy of MLK—>AFSCME growth soared
§
Their growth also happened because of the growth in services
offered by state and local governments + de facto alliance forced w/
big-city mayors
§
But growth of AFSCME stopped when in Atlanta, sanitation local of
AFSCME confronted Mayor Maynard Jackson but then he fired
hundreds of workers who didn't immediately return to work from
this one strike—>AFSCME humiliated
Even though he was tied to much to the civil rights movement
+ genuine as any African American politician of his generation
Had the backing of lots of white establishment and even
some of the old-line civil rights leadership
®
□
§
○
•
Chrysler corporation bailout
Important corporation in economic difficulties, politically sophisticated
union, interventionist Democratic administration that saw the patterns
set in the auto industry as innovative template for many other firms and
industry
○
Carter administration pushed for wage reductions, layoffs, squeeze on
supplier plants—guarantee for billion dollar corporate loan guarantee
○
For American workers, bailout was disastrous
UAW got seat on Chrysler board
§
But for the 1st time in 40 years, autoworkers no longer earned the
same wages in each of the Big Three auto firms
§
○
Deunionization swept auto parts sector while pattern bargaining among
Big Three domestic producers broken for a decade
Started happening in other industries as well—not even in just
sectors subjected to heightened competition from abroad
§
○
Bunch of new wage structures designed to embed new wage-and-benefit
inequalities: two-tier wage systems, establishment of non-union
subsidiaries ("double-breasting"), employee stock-ownership plans, profit
sharing, outsourcing, lump-sum age bonuses
○
Effects: concessionary bargaining in what had once been flagship firm of
industry offered powerful model that quickly spread to other firms, where
blue-collar wages fell; fragmentation of collective-bargaining process
implicit in bailout
○
•
Unions in the Reagan Era
Trade-union defeats also happened because of political isolation—few allies and
lots of critics
•
Class content of 1970s different after 1968
Middle class began to like Democratic Party more
○
Traditional working-class constituencies went to Republicans or stopped
caring about politics
○
Public policy has become less egalitarian
Watergate gave Democrats more electoral lift
§
○
•
During Carter administration, deregulation of transport sector + cut
unionization rates there by a third
The AFL-CIO defeat in their attempt to change some NLRB union
certification procedures didn't help either
○
•
Union efforts to secure legislative help proved equally ineffective when it came
to impact of low-wage competition on unionized U.S. jobs
During 1970s and 1980s, most unions preferred "protectionism" over
"free trade"
But protectionism saved few union jobs—>so much globalization
that companies would just start importing stuff
"Buy American" was pretty much just a marketing ploy□
§
○
•
Industrial Democracy: Management Style
In 1980s when there were so many layoffs, many thought that the only way that
U.S. industry could save itself was by radical reorganization that would enhance
productive flexibility to make American workers competitive w/ their foreign
rivals
No more "adversarial' relationship to management
○
"multiskilling" + team production—>no more seniority-based work
rules/job classifications
○
•
In General Motors, there was the belief that employees know more about jobs
than managers do—>employees have to fight this battle to try to become more
and more competitive—>new era of labor-management cooperation
denominated by white variety of names and schemes:
Quality of work life, jointness, nonadversarial labor relations, employee
involvement, team production, enterprise competitiveness
○
Represented challenge to industrial-relations orthodoxy of New Deal
system: labor and management had basically different interests in
workplace
○
•
Discipline + hierarchy built into workplace—seen as a well-oiled machine w/
militarized "rank and file"
As a result, there was grievances, conflict, and massive strikes
○
•
1950s: Clark Kerr
Industrial-relations intellectual
○
Mediation + administration could resolve social tensions
Irrationality, ill will, antiquated production technology didn't really
affect labor-management disputes
§
○
"Conflict is essential to survival. The union which is in constant and
complete agreement with management has ceased to be a union."
○
•
This perspective less functional after 1970: when sharp productivity fall-off
Hierarchal production model + militant American attachment to
"managerial prerogatives (special rights)"—>highly unproductive layer of
lower-level supervisors—>more rigidities, harder for US corporations to
respond to rapid changes in productive technology + product markets
Important more than ever to get consent from those in office and
shop
§
Other incentives, ideas, social arrangements, organizational
structures would have to be found if stuff from before couldn't
sustain cooperation
One alternative: return to welfare capitalism
Effort to generate union-free harmony within single
worksite or company
®
Before it was thought to be antichronistic to pre-New
Deal patterns but now they saw that it was essential to
keeping unions at bay
®
□
They began to look for ways to create "permanent Hawthorne
effect": social-psychological environment that motivates
workers + links their aspirations to those of the company
□
§
○
•
1930s and 40s way of relieving assembly-line tyranny: strengthening shop-
steward movement and grievance arbitration while campaigning in Congress
But by 1970s, both of these avenues for workplace reform were
blocked—more hostile legal environment + union movement's
bureaucratic routinization of grievance-handling apparatus + decline of
New Deal labor-liberal political coalition
○
•
UAW VP Irving Bluestone insisted that worker-management cooperation
schemes more designed to allow workers to help decide how the work place
will be managed + how worker will effectively have a voice in being master of
job rather than subservient to it
A lot of workplaces began incorporating elements of new system even
though what exactly goes in a cooperative work system was still pretty
vague
○
•
Conclusions that can be drawn with new-style industrial relations
American workers welcomed what constituted worker/manager
cooperation, participation, job enrichment
○
•
All managerial schemes are confined to single farm, factory, or office •
Long-term productivity and democratic participation require reorganization of
production, social provision, finance on far broader basis
•
Without protections offered by solid welfare state, broadly engaged union
movement, relatively egalitarian wage structure, efforts to build industrial
democracy in single work site largely doomed—imbalance of power between
workers and managers (244)
•
Despite boom of 1990s, future didn't look hopeful for American trade unions or
for the workers who wanted to join them
•
Lichtenstein, Ch. 6: A Time of Troubles
Monday, April 16, 2018
9:45 PM
Recessions negatively affected the steel industry a lot after like the 1980s
United Steelworkers of America went from 1 million to 200,000 in basic
steel + equal number in light manufacturing and services
○
By 1990s, US only industrial nation not self-sufficient in steel
○
•
Throughout era, recessions got worse and happened more frequently—>more
unemployment + less efficiency
Productivity growth fell so much
Became less than that of most of US's trading partners
§
○
Still economic growth but way less than it had been in the post-WWII
period
Families earned more but only because people started working way
more hours
§
Income inequalities widened
§
○
•
1970s + 1980s disaster for union movement—lost members + power
Losses mainly happened in old, unionized core of economy—factory
shutdowns
Heavily affected by international competition but even those
industries of manufacturing that didn't experience that competition
lost just as many members
§
○
•
Beyond Industrialism and Fordism
Explanations of this era's union decline + economic difficulty
Technics of production + character of market
○
Politics of society + labor movement itself
○
Post-industrialism
Daniel Bell: was just the latest stage in evolution of society
Perspective sustained by US census (more workers laboring in
service instead of manufacturing sectors)
□
In this type of society, production + business decisions
influenced by other forces
□
§
John Kenneth Galbraith: mature corporation part of comprehensive
structure of planning that is shaped by social goals + created by
growing public sector
§
Devalued anything characteristic of old order: production of things
in actual factories, various forms of routine service work, existence
of trade unions
§
○
Post-Fordism
Postwar Fordism didn't last long (where mass consumption and
production made to work in harmonious tandem)—cyberworld high
tech, greater intl. competition, cultural differentiation of product
markets undermined this production regime + consumption
patterns it depended on
§
Must accommodate to new world of "flexible specialization" that
required more highly educated workforce, rapid shifts in production
technology, smaller firm serving specialized markets, and creative
deployment of skilled labor
Meant radical shift if ideology and institutions
□
§
○
•
"Globalization": And its Limits
Where working class and institutions still play animating, democratizing role
(from the text on 219)
•
Argues that analysts of this saw what would happen to trade unions + other
institutions that stood in the way of worldwide market dependent on how much
raw market forces were able to grow
•
William Greider: intl. finance capital=the thing that will punish nations,
companies, unions, politicians who try to hinder free flow of money, labor, and
goods
•
"reform" + "liberalization" now denote process whereby open market in labor
and capital replaces regulatory regimes that used to be in place earlier in the
century (219)
•
The left basically has to choose what kind of capitalism it's able to support
•
From POV of labor mvt: vision of global, post-industrial, post-Fordist economic
world—>unions don't have their functional rationale + social legitimacy
Globalization of trade + transformation of productive tech on worldwide
scale—>more power/influence to anti-union critique
○
•
Globalization brought competition—>bad for unions
High wages made American manufacturing uncompetitive + union
requirements stifled creativity/generated inflexibility
High wages for unions—>wage differential between union/non-
union—>American managers wanted to put wages back into
competitive play
§
○
•
Globalization also mean new international laissez-faire that challenged a lot of
social-democratic arrangements and regulations
•
"Services are complements to manufacturing, not potential substitutes or
successors." (221)
•
Computer revolution blurred line between production of things + production of
ideas and services
•
Globalization in US has slashed blue-collar jobs in many older industrial
regions—it's cheaper for companies to pay for the laborers in other countries
than it is for laborers in US
•
Economies of countries not as globalized as it may seem—>national living
standards still highly determined by domestic conditions
•
For unions, there's a lot of plant-closing threats when they try to organize—>
unions lost more than 2/3 certification elections
•
"'globalization' is part of a complex dialectic that has certainly destroyed jobs
and communities in the United States" but it keeps struggling against decisive
managerial victory
Example: RCA
Began to search for labor early in 20th century: looked for low
wages, docile, quasi-rural workforce, abundance of young,
unemployed women
Looked to Eastern European women in Camden, New Jersey
and then farm girls from Bloomington, Indiana until both
groups unionized
□
Even Memphis, Tennessee African American workers
unionized
□
Moved to Ciudad Juarez where there was a bunch of rural
teenage women
They now had cheaper labor but eventually these
women began to rebel
®
□
§
○
•
Concession Bargaining: where trade unions surrender or give back previously gained
improvements in pay and conditions in exchange for some form of job security
Unions in US got greatest leap forward during Great Depression
Idea that unionism seen as working-class defending their rights against
forces let loose by the market
○
•
In most European nations and Japan, after 1973, unions went from being
politically and economically repressed to one which they had role to play in
center stage of politics
•
One of best places to look for why US's strong union movement declined is in
sectors of political economy that is pretty sheltered from international
competition
Their most significant difficulties showed up in construction industry +
municipal governance
○
•
Construction industry
Frequently short of workers for big commercial/governmental
construction projects
○
Industry wasn't "de-regulated"
○
1932: Davis-Bacon Act: mandated federal gov. pay "prevailing wage"
(usually union wage) on all construction
Contractor must hire set of local workers
§
○
Well organized
○
Usually used hiring halls maintained by powerful, politically well-
connected craft unions
○
Wages grew rapidly
Building trades justified this as function of boom-and-bust nature of
industry
§
Meanwhile union-shop contractors knew they could shift high-wage
costs onto government + big corporations who paid the bill—>
CUAIR formed
CUAIR (Construction Users Anti-Inflation Roundtable)
Big corporations w/ heavy construction budgets + some
of largest contractors
®
Said union shop was un-American
®
Wanted to crackdown on construction unions for them
to "open up"
®
Tried to remove Davis-Bacon Act + all state level
offspring of it, break monopoly of construction unions,
introduce Taylorist principles to building-construction
process, condemn craft unions out of step w/ tech
innovations/racial progress
®
□
§
○
Anti-union movement here was helped by the fact that construction
unions were beginning to get bad reputations esp. in liberal and even in
some labor circles—>"hardhat"—universal symbol for blue-collar social
conservatism, swaggering masculinity, racial resentment
○
Cultural and economic payoff unsubstantial: the still got positions of
political power, allowed craft unions to drag their feet when it came to
integration + advancement of African American men/women of either
race
○
But assault on craft wages and organization continued
○
Divorce between politics and industrial relations virtually complete
○
CUAIR transformed itself into Business Rountable (1972)
Set up a bunch of subsidiaries that hired only non-union labor
§
○
By the time that the recessions of mid-1970s and early 1980s hit, unions
had few allies on Left, Right, and in government—>lots and lots of de-
unionization
Percentage of union workers in this industry dropped, most
contracts renegotiated by craft unions included wage give-backs,
wages declined
§
○
•
Municipal labor problems homegrown
Urban deindustrialization, stagnant tax base, inflationary surge that
greatly increased how much money they were spending on infrastructure,
education, and welfare
Lots of municipal employees fired in the 1970s
§
○
They were overextended and over-manned—>needed to stop running the
city at the benefit of the employee if they were going to fix this
High levels of municipal services + adequate public-employee wages
= burdensome expenses—>had to decide what social services
would become part of new and higher social wage during the 1960s
§
Social wage pretty expensive—>public-employee unions exposed to
resentment of those who wanted to stigmatize social entitlements
that were newly legitimized during the last decade
These unions were scapegoats for urban working class
(incomes stagnant) + newly mobile bourgeoisie
□
§
○
Municipal anti-unionism even affected newly elected African American
officials whose empowerment was product of civil rights movement
The American Federation of State, County, and Municipal
Employees (AFSCME) linked cause of black sanitation workers to
legacy of MLK—>AFSCME growth soared
§
Their growth also happened because of the growth in services
offered by state and local governments + de facto alliance forced w/
big-city mayors
§
But growth of AFSCME stopped when in Atlanta, sanitation local of
AFSCME confronted Mayor Maynard Jackson but then he fired
hundreds of workers who didn't immediately return to work from
this one strike—>AFSCME humiliated
Even though he was tied to much to the civil rights movement
+ genuine as any African American politician of his generation
Had the backing of lots of white establishment and even
some of the old-line civil rights leadership
®
□
§
○
•
Chrysler corporation bailout
Important corporation in economic difficulties, politically sophisticated
union, interventionist Democratic administration that saw the patterns
set in the auto industry as innovative template for many other firms and
industry
○
Carter administration pushed for wage reductions, layoffs, squeeze on
supplier plants—guarantee for billion dollar corporate loan guarantee
○
For American workers, bailout was disastrous
UAW got seat on Chrysler board
§
But for the 1st time in 40 years, autoworkers no longer earned the
same wages in each of the Big Three auto firms
§
○
Deunionization swept auto parts sector while pattern bargaining among
Big Three domestic producers broken for a decade
Started happening in other industries as well—not even in just
sectors subjected to heightened competition from abroad
§
○
Bunch of new wage structures designed to embed new wage-and-benefit
inequalities: two-tier wage systems, establishment of non-union
subsidiaries ("double-breasting"), employee stock-ownership plans, profit
sharing, outsourcing, lump-sum age bonuses
○
Effects: concessionary bargaining in what had once been flagship firm of
industry offered powerful model that quickly spread to other firms, where
blue-collar wages fell; fragmentation of collective-bargaining process
implicit in bailout
○
•
Unions in the Reagan Era
Trade-union defeats also happened because of political isolation—few allies and
lots of critics
•
Class content of 1970s different after 1968
Middle class began to like Democratic Party more
○
Traditional working-class constituencies went to Republicans or stopped
caring about politics
○
Public policy has become less egalitarian
Watergate gave Democrats more electoral lift
§
○
•
During Carter administration, deregulation of transport sector + cut
unionization rates there by a third
The AFL-CIO defeat in their attempt to change some NLRB union
certification procedures didn't help either
○
•
Union efforts to secure legislative help proved equally ineffective when it came
to impact of low-wage competition on unionized U.S. jobs
During 1970s and 1980s, most unions preferred "protectionism" over
"free trade"
But protectionism saved few union jobs—>so much globalization
that companies would just start importing stuff
"Buy American" was pretty much just a marketing ploy□
§
○
•
Industrial Democracy: Management Style
In 1980s when there were so many layoffs, many thought that the only way that
U.S. industry could save itself was by radical reorganization that would enhance
productive flexibility to make American workers competitive w/ their foreign
rivals
No more "adversarial' relationship to management
○
"multiskilling" + team production—>no more seniority-based work
rules/job classifications
○
•
In General Motors, there was the belief that employees know more about jobs
than managers do—>employees have to fight this battle to try to become more
and more competitive—>new era of labor-management cooperation
denominated by white variety of names and schemes:
Quality of work life, jointness, nonadversarial labor relations, employee
involvement, team production, enterprise competitiveness
○
Represented challenge to industrial-relations orthodoxy of New Deal
system: labor and management had basically different interests in
workplace
○
•
Discipline + hierarchy built into workplace—seen as a well-oiled machine w/
militarized "rank and file"
As a result, there was grievances, conflict, and massive strikes
○
•
1950s: Clark Kerr
Industrial-relations intellectual
○
Mediation + administration could resolve social tensions
Irrationality, ill will, antiquated production technology didn't really
affect labor-management disputes
§
○
"Conflict is essential to survival. The union which is in constant and
complete agreement with management has ceased to be a union."
○
•
This perspective less functional after 1970: when sharp productivity fall-off
Hierarchal production model + militant American attachment to
"managerial prerogatives (special rights)"—>highly unproductive layer of
lower-level supervisors—>more rigidities, harder for US corporations to
respond to rapid changes in productive technology + product markets
Important more than ever to get consent from those in office and
shop
§
Other incentives, ideas, social arrangements, organizational
structures would have to be found if stuff from before couldn't
sustain cooperation
One alternative: return to welfare capitalism
Effort to generate union-free harmony within single
worksite or company
®
Before it was thought to be antichronistic to pre-New
Deal patterns but now they saw that it was essential to
keeping unions at bay
®
□
They began to look for ways to create "permanent Hawthorne
effect": social-psychological environment that motivates
workers + links their aspirations to those of the company
□
§
○
•
1930s and 40s way of relieving assembly-line tyranny: strengthening shop-
steward movement and grievance arbitration while campaigning in Congress
But by 1970s, both of these avenues for workplace reform were
blocked—more hostile legal environment + union movement's
bureaucratic routinization of grievance-handling apparatus + decline of
New Deal labor-liberal political coalition
○
•
UAW VP Irving Bluestone insisted that worker-management cooperation
schemes more designed to allow workers to help decide how the work place
will be managed + how worker will effectively have a voice in being master of
job rather than subservient to it
A lot of workplaces began incorporating elements of new system even
though what exactly goes in a cooperative work system was still pretty
vague
○
•
Conclusions that can be drawn with new-style industrial relations
American workers welcomed what constituted worker/manager
cooperation, participation, job enrichment
○
•
All managerial schemes are confined to single farm, factory, or office •
Long-term productivity and democratic participation require reorganization of
production, social provision, finance on far broader basis
•
Without protections offered by solid welfare state, broadly engaged union
movement, relatively egalitarian wage structure, efforts to build industrial
democracy in single work site largely doomed—imbalance of power between
workers and managers (244)
•
Despite boom of 1990s, future didn't look hopeful for American trade unions or
for the workers who wanted to join them
•
Lichtenstein, Ch. 6: A Time of Troubles
Monday, April 16, 2018 9:45 PM
Recessions negatively affected the steel industry a lot after like the 1980s
United Steelworkers of America went from 1 million to 200,000 in basic
steel + equal number in light manufacturing and services
○
By 1990s, US only industrial nation not self-sufficient in steel
○
•
Throughout era, recessions got worse and happened more frequently—>more
unemployment + less efficiency
Productivity growth fell so much
Became less than that of most of US's trading partners
§
○
Still economic growth but way less than it had been in the post-WWII
period
Families earned more but only because people started working way
more hours
§
Income inequalities widened
§
○
•
1970s + 1980s disaster for union movement—lost members + power
Losses mainly happened in old, unionized core of economy—factory
shutdowns
Heavily affected by international competition but even those
industries of manufacturing that didn't experience that competition
lost just as many members
§
○
•
Beyond Industrialism and Fordism
Explanations of this era's union decline + economic difficulty
Technics of production + character of market
○
Politics of society + labor movement itself
○
Post-industrialism
Daniel Bell: was just the latest stage in evolution of society
Perspective sustained by US census (more workers laboring in
service instead of manufacturing sectors)
□
In this type of society, production + business decisions
influenced by other forces
□
§
John Kenneth Galbraith: mature corporation part of comprehensive
structure of planning that is shaped by social goals + created by
growing public sector
§
Devalued anything characteristic of old order: production of things
in actual factories, various forms of routine service work, existence
of trade unions
§
○
Post-Fordism
Postwar Fordism didn't last long (where mass consumption and
production made to work in harmonious tandem)—cyberworld high
tech, greater intl. competition, cultural differentiation of product
markets undermined this production regime + consumption
patterns it depended on
§
Must accommodate to new world of "flexible specialization" that
required more highly educated workforce, rapid shifts in production
technology, smaller firm serving specialized markets, and creative
deployment of skilled labor
Meant radical shift if ideology and institutions□
§
○
•
"Globalization": And its Limits
Where working class and institutions still play animating, democratizing role
(from the text on 219)
•
Argues that analysts of this saw what would happen to trade unions + other
institutions that stood in the way of worldwide market dependent on how much
raw market forces were able to grow
•
William Greider: intl. finance capital=the thing that will punish nations,
companies, unions, politicians who try to hinder free flow of money, labor, and
goods
•
"reform" + "liberalization" now denote process whereby open market in labor
and capital replaces regulatory regimes that used to be in place earlier in the
century (219)
•
The left basically has to choose what kind of capitalism it's able to support •
From POV of labor mvt: vision of global, post-industrial, post-Fordist economic
world—>unions don't have their functional rationale + social legitimacy
Globalization of trade + transformation of productive tech on worldwide
scale—>more power/influence to anti-union critique
○
•
Globalization brought competition—>bad for unions
High wages made American manufacturing uncompetitive + union
requirements stifled creativity/generated inflexibility
High wages for unions—>wage differential between union/non-
union—>American managers wanted to put wages back into
competitive play
§
○
•
Globalization also mean new international laissez-faire that challenged a lot of
social-democratic arrangements and regulations
•
"Services are complements to manufacturing, not potential substitutes or
successors." (221)
•
Computer revolution blurred line between production of things + production of
ideas and services
•
Globalization in US has slashed blue-collar jobs in many older industrial
regions—it's cheaper for companies to pay for the laborers in other countries
than it is for laborers in US
•
Economies of countries not as globalized as it may seem—>national living
standards still highly determined by domestic conditions
•
For unions, there's a lot of plant-closing threats when they try to organize—>
unions lost more than 2/3 certification elections
•
"'globalization' is part of a complex dialectic that has certainly destroyed jobs
and communities in the United States" but it keeps struggling against decisive
managerial victory
Example: RCA
Began to search for labor early in 20th century: looked for low
wages, docile, quasi-rural workforce, abundance of young,
unemployed women
Looked to Eastern European women in Camden, New Jersey
and then farm girls from Bloomington, Indiana until both
groups unionized
□
Even Memphis, Tennessee African American workers
unionized
□
Moved to Ciudad Juarez where there was a bunch of rural
teenage women
They now had cheaper labor but eventually these
women began to rebel
®
□
§
○
•
Concession Bargaining: where trade unions surrender or give back previously gained
improvements in pay and conditions in exchange for some form of job security
Unions in US got greatest leap forward during Great Depression
Idea that unionism seen as working-class defending their rights against
forces let loose by the market
○
•
In most European nations and Japan, after 1973, unions went from being
politically and economically repressed to one which they had role to play in
center stage of politics
•
One of best places to look for why US's strong union movement declined is in
sectors of political economy that is pretty sheltered from international
competition
Their most significant difficulties showed up in construction industry +
municipal governance
○
•
Construction industry
Frequently short of workers for big commercial/governmental
construction projects
○
Industry wasn't "de-regulated"
○
1932: Davis-Bacon Act: mandated federal gov. pay "prevailing wage"
(usually union wage) on all construction
Contractor must hire set of local workers
§
○
Well organized
○
Usually used hiring halls maintained by powerful, politically well-
connected craft unions
○
Wages grew rapidly
Building trades justified this as function of boom-and-bust nature of
industry
§
Meanwhile union-shop contractors knew they could shift high-wage
costs onto government + big corporations who paid the bill—>
CUAIR formed
CUAIR (Construction Users Anti-Inflation Roundtable)
Big corporations w/ heavy construction budgets + some
of largest contractors
®
Said union shop was un-American
®
Wanted to crackdown on construction unions for them
to "open up"
®
Tried to remove Davis-Bacon Act + all state level
offspring of it, break monopoly of construction unions,
introduce Taylorist principles to building-construction
process, condemn craft unions out of step w/ tech
innovations/racial progress
®
□
§
○
Anti-union movement here was helped by the fact that construction
unions were beginning to get bad reputations esp. in liberal and even in
some labor circles—>"hardhat"—universal symbol for blue-collar social
conservatism, swaggering masculinity, racial resentment
○
Cultural and economic payoff unsubstantial: the still got positions of
political power, allowed craft unions to drag their feet when it came to
integration + advancement of African American men/women of either
race
○
But assault on craft wages and organization continued
○
Divorce between politics and industrial relations virtually complete
○
CUAIR transformed itself into Business Rountable (1972)
Set up a bunch of subsidiaries that hired only non-union labor
§
○
By the time that the recessions of mid-1970s and early 1980s hit, unions
had few allies on Left, Right, and in government—>lots and lots of de-
unionization
Percentage of union workers in this industry dropped, most
contracts renegotiated by craft unions included wage give-backs,
wages declined
§
○
•
Municipal labor problems homegrown
Urban deindustrialization, stagnant tax base, inflationary surge that
greatly increased how much money they were spending on infrastructure,
education, and welfare
Lots of municipal employees fired in the 1970s
§
○
They were overextended and over-manned—>needed to stop running the
city at the benefit of the employee if they were going to fix this
High levels of municipal services + adequate public-employee wages
= burdensome expenses—>had to decide what social services
would become part of new and higher social wage during the 1960s
§
Social wage pretty expensive—>public-employee unions exposed to
resentment of those who wanted to stigmatize social entitlements
that were newly legitimized during the last decade
These unions were scapegoats for urban working class
(incomes stagnant) + newly mobile bourgeoisie
□
§
○
Municipal anti-unionism even affected newly elected African American
officials whose empowerment was product of civil rights movement
The American Federation of State, County, and Municipal
Employees (AFSCME) linked cause of black sanitation workers to
legacy of MLK—>AFSCME growth soared
§
Their growth also happened because of the growth in services
offered by state and local governments + de facto alliance forced w/
big-city mayors
§
But growth of AFSCME stopped when in Atlanta, sanitation local of
AFSCME confronted Mayor Maynard Jackson but then he fired
hundreds of workers who didn't immediately return to work from
this one strike—>AFSCME humiliated
Even though he was tied to much to the civil rights movement
+ genuine as any African American politician of his generation
Had the backing of lots of white establishment and even
some of the old-line civil rights leadership
®
□
§
○
•
Chrysler corporation bailout
Important corporation in economic difficulties, politically sophisticated
union, interventionist Democratic administration that saw the patterns
set in the auto industry as innovative template for many other firms and
industry
○
Carter administration pushed for wage reductions, layoffs, squeeze on
supplier plants—guarantee for billion dollar corporate loan guarantee
○
For American workers, bailout was disastrous
UAW got seat on Chrysler board
§
But for the 1st time in 40 years, autoworkers no longer earned the
same wages in each of the Big Three auto firms
§
○
Deunionization swept auto parts sector while pattern bargaining among
Big Three domestic producers broken for a decade
Started happening in other industries as well—not even in just
sectors subjected to heightened competition from abroad
§
○
Bunch of new wage structures designed to embed new wage-and-benefit
inequalities: two-tier wage systems, establishment of non-union
subsidiaries ("double-breasting"), employee stock-ownership plans, profit
sharing, outsourcing, lump-sum age bonuses
○
Effects: concessionary bargaining in what had once been flagship firm of
industry offered powerful model that quickly spread to other firms, where
blue-collar wages fell; fragmentation of collective-bargaining process
implicit in bailout
○
•
Unions in the Reagan Era
Trade-union defeats also happened because of political isolation—few allies and
lots of critics
•
Class content of 1970s different after 1968
Middle class began to like Democratic Party more
○
Traditional working-class constituencies went to Republicans or stopped
caring about politics
○
Public policy has become less egalitarian
Watergate gave Democrats more electoral lift
§
○
•
During Carter administration, deregulation of transport sector + cut
unionization rates there by a third
The AFL-CIO defeat in their attempt to change some NLRB union
certification procedures didn't help either
○
•
Union efforts to secure legislative help proved equally ineffective when it came
to impact of low-wage competition on unionized U.S. jobs
During 1970s and 1980s, most unions preferred "protectionism" over
"free trade"
But protectionism saved few union jobs—>so much globalization
that companies would just start importing stuff
"Buy American" was pretty much just a marketing ploy□
§
○
•
Industrial Democracy: Management Style
In 1980s when there were so many layoffs, many thought that the only way that
U.S. industry could save itself was by radical reorganization that would enhance
productive flexibility to make American workers competitive w/ their foreign
rivals
No more "adversarial' relationship to management
○
"multiskilling" + team production—>no more seniority-based work
rules/job classifications
○
•
In General Motors, there was the belief that employees know more about jobs
than managers do—>employees have to fight this battle to try to become more
and more competitive—>new era of labor-management cooperation
denominated by white variety of names and schemes:
Quality of work life, jointness, nonadversarial labor relations, employee
involvement, team production, enterprise competitiveness
○
Represented challenge to industrial-relations orthodoxy of New Deal
system: labor and management had basically different interests in
workplace
○
•
Discipline + hierarchy built into workplace—seen as a well-oiled machine w/
militarized "rank and file"
As a result, there was grievances, conflict, and massive strikes
○
•
1950s: Clark Kerr
Industrial-relations intellectual
○
Mediation + administration could resolve social tensions
Irrationality, ill will, antiquated production technology didn't really
affect labor-management disputes
§
○
"Conflict is essential to survival. The union which is in constant and
complete agreement with management has ceased to be a union."
○
•
This perspective less functional after 1970: when sharp productivity fall-off
Hierarchal production model + militant American attachment to
"managerial prerogatives (special rights)"—>highly unproductive layer of
lower-level supervisors—>more rigidities, harder for US corporations to
respond to rapid changes in productive technology + product markets
Important more than ever to get consent from those in office and
shop
§
Other incentives, ideas, social arrangements, organizational
structures would have to be found if stuff from before couldn't
sustain cooperation
One alternative: return to welfare capitalism
Effort to generate union-free harmony within single
worksite or company
®
Before it was thought to be antichronistic to pre-New
Deal patterns but now they saw that it was essential to
keeping unions at bay
®
□
They began to look for ways to create "permanent Hawthorne
effect": social-psychological environment that motivates
workers + links their aspirations to those of the company
□
§
○
•
1930s and 40s way of relieving assembly-line tyranny: strengthening shop-
steward movement and grievance arbitration while campaigning in Congress
But by 1970s, both of these avenues for workplace reform were
blocked—more hostile legal environment + union movement's
bureaucratic routinization of grievance-handling apparatus + decline of
New Deal labor-liberal political coalition
○
•
UAW VP Irving Bluestone insisted that worker-management cooperation
schemes more designed to allow workers to help decide how the work place
will be managed + how worker will effectively have a voice in being master of
job rather than subservient to it
A lot of workplaces began incorporating elements of new system even
though what exactly goes in a cooperative work system was still pretty
vague
○
•
Conclusions that can be drawn with new-style industrial relations
American workers welcomed what constituted worker/manager
cooperation, participation, job enrichment
○
•
All managerial schemes are confined to single farm, factory, or office •
Long-term productivity and democratic participation require reorganization of
production, social provision, finance on far broader basis
•
Without protections offered by solid welfare state, broadly engaged union
movement, relatively egalitarian wage structure, efforts to build industrial
democracy in single work site largely doomed—imbalance of power between
workers and managers (244)
•
Despite boom of 1990s, future didn't look hopeful for American trade unions or
for the workers who wanted to join them
•
Lichtenstein, Ch. 6: A Time of Troubles
Monday, April 16, 2018 9:45 PM
Document Summary
Recessions negatively affected the steel industry a lot after like the 1980s. United steelworkers of america went from 1 million to 200,000 in basic steel + equal number in light manufacturing and services. By 1990s, us only industrial nation not self-sufficient in steel. Throughout era, recessions got worse and happened more frequently >more unemployment + less efficiency. Became less than that of most of us"s trading partners. Still economic growth but way less than it had been in the post-wwii period. Families earned more but only because people started working way more hours. 1970s + 1980s disaster for union movement lost members + power. Losses mainly happened in old, unionized core of economy factory shutdowns. Heavily affected by international competition but even those industries of manufacturing that didn"t experience that competition lost just as many members. Explanations of this era"s union decline + economic difficulty. Daniel bell: was just the latest stage in evolution of society.