Trade unions WW2 Flashcards
How were employers weakened in WW2 and what effect did this have on labour?
Control of industry was effectively taken from manufacturers and owners, this ripped the balance in favour of the workers as their efforts were essential to the war.
What happened to levels of production in agriculture and industry during WW2?
They increased massively, manufacturing output doubled.
These levels of production were achieved by the centralisation of planning and direction. In particular the Office of War Mobilization set up in May 1943 established priorities and set production targets.
What was the National War Labour Board?
In 1941 NWLB was set up to adjudicate wage disputes. They adopted a formula for dealing with wage disputes that permitted a 15% cost of living increase. As a result, wage rises and increases in overtime pay boosted average industrial earnings by 70% during the war.
They looked favourably to unions.
What action was taken in WW2 to exert control over union action?
In 1943 President Roosevelt was empowered to seize any plant where strike action threatened to interfere with war production.
It also made it illegal to instigate strikes and required unions to give 30 days notice on all strikes.
In addition, a number of state laws, especially in the south, prohibited ‘closed shops’.
When did Ford finally recognise the Auto Workers Union?
1941
What did increase in production, expansion of armed forces and halting of immigration lead to during WW2?
A fall in unemployment from 9 million in June 1940 to 783,000 in September 1943.
Improvements in employment of women, 50% increase in women at work.
What was the effect of WW2 on black labour?
More than 1 million black Americans found jobs in the industrial centres of the north and west. Black factory workers however remain restricted to menial jobs.
Black migration led to riots in northern cities, the worst in Detroit 1943 when 25 black and 9 white killed.
How was the post-war period negative for labour?
The end of wartime controls unleashed a huge wave of strikes.
There was growing belief that unions were becoming too powerful.
The anti-communist focus of the USA introduced suspicion of the members of the Communist Party of American who were also often active in the Trade Union movement.
What was the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947?
AKA the Labour Management Relations Act.
Restrained the powers of TUs and sought to purge organised labour of communists.
This weakened the CIO in particular whose origins were based on some support from the Communist Party. Divisions between Communist and Non-Communist unions weakened the CIO. This was compounded when CIO expelled 10 communist led unions in 1949, 1/3 members gone.
The Republicans had made it clear that they had no desire to support TUs.
Truman attempted to veto the act but was overruled by Congress.
When did the CIO merge with the AFL?
1955
What was unity of workers like by the end of WW2?
More united, but still divisions based on skilled/unskilled workers, ethnicity and women.
