In May 1937, seventy thousand workers walked off their jobs at four large steel companies known collectively as “Little Steel.” The strikers sought to make the companies retreat from decades of antiunion repression, abide by the newly enacted federal labor law, and recognize their union. For two months a grinding struggle unfolded, punctuated by bloody clashes in which police, company agents, and National Guardsmen ruthlessly beat and shot unionists. At least sixteen died and hundreds more were injured before the strike ended in failure. The violence and brutality of the Little Steel Strike became legendary. In many ways it was the last great strike in modern America.
Traditionally the Little Steel Strike has been understood as a modest setback for steel workers, one that actually confirmed the potency of New Deal reforms and did little to impede the progress of the labor movement. However,
The Last Great Strike tells a different story about the conflict and its significance for unions and labor rights. More than any other strike, it laid bare the contradictions of the industrial labor movement, the resilience of corporate power, and the limits of New Deal liberalism at a crucial time in American history.
Spis treści
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Labor, Little Steel, and the New Deal
PART I
The Open Shop
1 • Like a Penitentiary: Steel and the Origins of the Open Shop
2 • They Should Honor Us: Work and Conflict in the Open Shop Era
3 • Sure, We Have Guns: The Open Shop in the Depression Era
4 • I Never Gave That Guy Nothin’:
The New Deal and the Changing Landscape of Labor Relations
5 • To Banish Fear: The Campaign to Organize Steel
PART II
The Strike
6 • The Spirit of Unrest: From Stalemate to Walkout
7 • In the Name of the People: The Incident on Memorial Day
8 • What Had to Be Done: The Struggle at the Mill Gates
9 • A Change of Heart: Corporate Power and New Deal Strikebreaking
10 • Let’s Bust Them Up: Last Struggles and Defeat
PART III
The Aftermath
11 • A Steel Strike Is Not a Picnic: The Anatomy of Failure
12 • Kind of a Victory: New Deal Labor Law on Trial
13 • Unreconciled: War, Victory, and the Legacies of Defeat
Conclusion: These Things That Mean So Much to Us
Appendix
Abbreviations
Notes
Bibliographic Note
Index
O autorze
Ahmed White is a Professor of Law at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
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