The Other New Deal and Labor: The Regulatory State and the Unions, 1933–1940

In: Journal of policy history: JPH, Band 13, Heft 3, S. 367-390

Abstract

At the end of Turbulent Years, his classic study of the labor upheavals of the 1930s, Irving Bernstein unexpectedly announces that the American Federation of Labor "gained a decisive and permanent victory." This is a remarkable admission. Bernstein had devoted the bulk of his study to the failures of the AFL and the emergence of a more relevant alternative, the CIO. Like most authors, he associated the turbulence of the 1930s with the rise of industrial unionism, which addressed the apparent deficiencies of the AFL, notably its preoccupation with skilled workers and neglect of large-scale manufacturing. Still, the AFL grew more rapidly. Bernstein tries to explain: the triumph of the AFL "was hidden by the mystique of power [John L] Lewis had imparted to the CIO, by the highly publicized contemporary successes of SWOC…and UAW…and the deliberate falsification of membership records." While these factors may account for the misleading imagery of the CIO, they do not explain the behavior of millions of workers who opted for AFL organizations. Clearly other forces were at work.