LABOR HISTORY II - Required 2nd Year Course

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This class takes the labor movement of the 1930s and discusses the beginning of the united AFL-CIO and the birth of many of its strongest and newest unions. Day one starts where Labor History 1 ended, the turmoil of the 1930s. We will discuss the rebirth of the United Mine Workers and the charismatic UMWA president John L. Lewis. We will then show how the UMWA gave birth to a number of other unions, the most important being the UAW and the Steelworkers. Day two begins with the birth of the longshoremen's union which ended in the controversy that was fictionalized in the academy award-winning movie "On the Waterfront." At the same time, we will examine the breakaway, western part of that union that ended up organizing the entire west coast and Hawaii. We conclude with a film of the Hilo Massacre that crystallized both the organization of all of Hawaii and the birth of the Hawaiian Democratic Party. The third day is devoted to two of the most powerful new unions, the American Federation of Teachers and the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees. How did both end up with more than a million members? Day four is devoted to the new Teamsters (and a great deal of discussion about the rise and fall of Jimmy Hoffa) and the United Farmworkers in the days of the charismatic Cesar Chavez. The final day is dedicated to an examination of the Service Employees and some of their theories about organizing. There is also a homework project, particularly for the many members of the IBEW that should be in this class. The class project will be to create a new history of the modern IBEW.