Chapter 15 Zinn

Great Depression Labor Militancy

During the early 1930s, workers increasingly relied on mass strikes, direct action, and spontaneous uprisings rather than formal union leadership, reflecting desperation and class conflict intensified by the Depression

Textile Strike of 1934

A nationwide strike involving over 421,000 textile workers that ended after violent repression and federal mediation, illustrating both worker militancy and the state’s role in stabilizing capitalism

State Repression of Labor

Use of arrests, violence, injunctions, police, and National Guard troops to suppress worker uprisings while maintaining the appearance of neutrality through mediation and law

Southern Tenant Farmers Union (STFU)

A rare interracial union of poor white and black sharecroppers formed in response to Depression-era displacement and exploitation, highlighting class solidarity against racial division

Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) Impact

New Deal farm policy that paid landowners to reduce production but worsened conditions for tenants and sharecroppers by forcing them off the land

Sharecropping Poverty

System in which tenant farmers earned extremely low incomes and remained trapped in debt, disproportionately affecting Black farmers in the South

Communist Organizing in the South

Communist activists helped organize poor farmers and unemployed workers, often filling the vacuum left by mainstream unions and government neglect

Nate Shaw Case

Example of grassroots resistance by a Black sharecropper who defended a fellow farmer from dispossession and was imprisoned, illustrating the criminalization of survival resistance

Class Over Race Consciousness

Idea expressed by figures like Nate Shaw that poor whites and poor Blacks shared material interests opposed by wealthy elites, despite racial division

Scottsboro Boys Case

1931 trial of nine Black youths falsely accused of rape, which exposed systemic racism in the justice system and radicalized Black activists like Hosea Hudson

Unemployed Councils

Grassroots organizations led largely by Communists that provided mutual aid and political education to unemployed workers during the Depression

Block Committees

Neighborhood-based organizing units that addressed immediate needs like food while spreading class consciousness and political awareness

Industrial Unionism

Organizing strategy that united all workers in a single industry regardless of craft, challenging the exclusivity of the AFL

Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO)

Breakaway union federation focused on mass production workers, formed in response to rank-and-file pressure rather than elite leadership initiative

Rank-and-File Insurgency

Bottom-up labor actions that forced union leaders and the federal government to respond, demonstrating worker power rooted in disruption rather than formal organization

Sit-Down Strike

Labor tactic where workers occupied factories to prevent strikebreaking and assert control over production, posing a direct threat to private property norms

Akron Rubber Strikes

Early sit-down strikes that demonstrated the effectiveness of factory occupation and inspired a nationwide wave of similar actions

Flint Sit-Down Strike (1936–1937)

Major labor confrontation at General Motors that led to union recognition and symbolized the peak of worker-controlled resistance

Worker Self-Government

Internal organization of occupied factories through committees, courts, and shared responsibilities, creating temporary democratic labor communities

Memorial Day Massacre (1937)

Police killing of ten steelworkers during a strike in Chicago, exposing the violence underlying labor repression

Wagner Act (1935)

Law that legalized unions and collective bargaining while channeling labor conflict into regulated, state-controlled processes

National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)

Federal agency designed to manage labor disputes and stabilize capitalism by setting legal limits on worker action

Containment of Labor Radicalism

Process by which unions and government redirected disruptive worker energy into contracts, elections, and bureaucracy

Union Bureaucratization

Transformation of unions into institutions that prioritized stability and negotiation over direct action, often opposing wildcat strikes

Cloward-Piven Thesis

Argument that workers gained the most power through disruption before being fully organized into unions, not through institutional channels

Decline of Labor Power Post-1937

Reduction in strike effectiveness due to legal restrictions, hostile courts, and wartime nationalism

World War II Labor Truce

Agreement by major unions to avoid strikes during wartime, weakening labor militancy despite continued grievances

Wildcat Strikes During WWII

Unauthorized worker strikes driven by inflation and wage controls, showing unresolved class tensions despite formal labor peace

New Deal Reform Limits

Federal programs provided partial relief but preserved capitalist power structures and failed to address systemic inequality

Minimum Wage Act of 1938

Established labor standards but excluded many workers and set wages too low to eliminate poverty

Social Security Exclusions

Program that left out farmers, domestic workers, and many Black laborers, reinforcing racial and class inequality

Federal Arts Projects

New Deal programs that democratized access to culture and employment but were later dismantled once stability returned

Racial Exclusion in the New Deal

Systematic neglect of Black Americans in relief programs due to political compromise with Southern segregationists

Fair Employment Practices Committee (FEPC)

Weak federal response to discrimination created only after pressure from Black labor leaders like A. Philip Randolph

Harlem Conditions in the 1930s

Overcrowding, poverty, disease, and exploitation persisted despite New Deal reforms, revealing racialized inequality

Harlem Riot of 1935

Explosion of anger against economic injustice and racial exploitation, demonstrating limits of reformist solutions

Langston Hughes’s Social Critique

Poetry that framed American inequality as a betrayal of democratic ideals and voiced multiracial working-class struggle

Interracial Unionism

Efforts by CIO and radicals to unite Black and white workers around shared economic interests

Women in Labor Movements

Women played critical support and organizing roles in strikes despite the absence of a mass feminist movement

Labor and System Stability

The New Deal balanced concessions and control, restoring faith in capitalism without altering fundamental power relations