stepan-norris and zeitlin, left out (2003)

Chapter One

(1): long 'Red Decade', early 30s to late 40s (bookended by 1933 and 1950, really)

(2): CIO originated in 1935, to 'organize the unorganized'-- broke, after charges of dual unionism, to become officially independent in November 1938

(3): by 1947, its international unions represented 80% of the country's industrial workers!

(4): Communists were best organized political group, within the CIO

(4-5): C Wright Mills as classic 'left' position on CP in unions--dictatorial, undemocratic, slavish to Moscow, etc.

(14-15): Communist Camp--stalwarts were UE, the ILWU, the MM; 'uncertain and shifting' were UAW, ACW, UPWA; anti-communist camp were USWA (especially powerful, of course), TWIA, URW.

(16): degeneration really begins in 1947 and 1948, they're arguing, as they are disoriented by Truman and the Marshall Plan, and their own failed and "uneven" support for Wallace in 1948

(17): in 1949-1950, when the CIO expelled 11 'communist-dominated' internationals, one estimate was that it lost up to a million members! (CIO's total memership in 1948, at its height, was 4.3 million). at their height, in 1946, they represented some 27% of the CIO's membership.

(20): key--the guiding thread of this book, then, is the importance of the 'intraclass struggle within the class struggle' [it is difficult, though, to speak about a 'relative autonomy'--for what is sometimes missing, I think, is the way in which the larger 'class struggle' redounds on this intraclass struggle. and, of course, the willingness to set this in the perspective of the longue duree. but these are only partial criticisms.]

(22-23): absolutely--their denials/ignorance of Stalin's terror, etc. should not obscure the critical democratic achievements of the rank-and-file of Communist trade unionists.

Chapter Two

(24-25): organizing 'The Rouge' in 1941--the last citadel to fall to the CIO

(26-30): key argument--Communists not in power, they're arguing, due to their 'organizational discipline'/monolithic activism, etc., but because of their actual, effective organizing. there is an element of contingency that we can admit, but we have to understand it as socially determined contingency--there are "indelible connections" between the 'insurgent practices' and whether a union was communist, or not.

(32): CIO, remember, is product of two phases of class struggle.

1. 1920s, industrial unionism against AFL craft
2. after early 1930s, in response to labor upsurge

(32-33): key--thus, we can think of 'four insurgent political practices'

1. earlier Red organizing
2. whether the union seceded from the AFL 'from below', or whether it was an officers' revolt
3. whether the union was organized independently, or whether it was done by a CIO organizing committee
4. whether it was formed through amalgamation, or as a unitary organization

(33): earlier phase of organizing was carried by the TUEL (within the AFL, boring holes) and then, in 1929, the TUUL (new industrial unions, outside the AFL), after the demise of the Wobblies

(37): key premise, which needs to be at the heart of our interrogation of their thesis--"objective conditions do not create organizations."

(38): argument--earlier Red organizing makes it more likely that the international is Communist

(40-41, 43): argument--same goes from workers' insurgency (UAW) vs. officers' revolt (SWOC)

(46): argument--same goes for amalgamation (UE) vs. unitary

(48-49): in sum--their theoretical model, quite useful table/diagram

(51-52): in sum--these four insurgent political practices increased the odds of Communist victory. BUT they are careful to warn against voluntarism, because all of this was made possible by the Great Depression. Men are not 'corks on a river', but a river exists nonetheless? [certainly, as phrased here, this theoretical tack is hardly objectionable]

Chapter Three

(54-57): key--Michels' iron law of oligarchy cannot, at all, take into account the intraclass struggles that took place--the fact that democratic unions existed, and that oligarghic unions existed. It is therefore totally ahistorical. [of course, there is a limit to which we want to push the notion of 'contingency', here, but as a rejoinder this is very important. but let's probe, here]

(59): three features of a democratic union

1. democratic constitution
2. institutionalized opposition
3. active membership

(66): constitution as a 'real reflection' of the internal political dynamics--as them, congealed

(69-82): argument--the four insurgent political practices and the likelihood of being democratic--amalgamation and secession from AFL had significant impact (but there all bound up with each other, don't forget, so there are indirect effects)

(85): diffuse vs. narrow ideology--Communism as former, business unionism as latter

(87-89): argument--Communist-leadership and democracy positively correlated (this holds even when you control for insurgent practices, factions, etc.--even though they recognize that this is not favorable, because each is implicated in the other)

(93): in sum--a theoretical model; quite useful, again.

(94): in sum--oligarchy and democracy as "alternative possible paths"; the outcome as contingent, not determined [again, I think this works as a rejoinder, but it would be hard to stand on its own, as an insight. surely there is some need to take a longer perspective (remember that we are looking at variation within the long 'Red decade')]

Chapter Four

(96): contrast between Fordist hierarchy and industrial democracy

(97): turning point for the UAW Local 600 was 1952, when Ford moved to 'de-centralize' (here they track the figures: 58,000 in 1941 voted for CIO (fraction had voted instead for AFL); had about 60,00 dues-paying members in the late 40's; decline begins in 1952.)

(99-102): the coupling of activism and socialism explains Local 600's rich political life, they argue. the 'insurgent practices' gave rise to a 'colossal overproduction' of experienced organizers.

(103-104): key--a contingent, strategic decision to build radical democracy in a diverse workforce--a "double-edged realm of possibility" [the implication being, of course, that the other strategy was also 'open'. but can this satisfy us? we want to give credit where credit is due; but we don't want to abandon explanation.]

(108-109): progressive militance at Rouge

(112): Reuthers' only answer to 'Stalinism' at Rouge, was 'bureaucratic force'

(113): argument--the left-wing units, at Rouge, were the most contentious/democratic

(114-115): argument--it was the Communists who were most tolerant of political opposition in the unions

Chapter Five

(121): Reuther and the 5-year contracts, in 1950--this "class accord" marked the end, as Davis argues. From 'struggle' to negotiation.

(124): Local 600 files a suit against Ford and the long contract.

(125): 'decentralization', then, was just as much a 'political' decision, as an economic one

(127-129): key--here, positioning themselves against 'functionalist' Marxist and pluralist understandings of the labor agreement, which unanimously see it as a harbinger of 'accord.' here, instead, they stress the diversity amongst agreements--and thus, the importance of not acceding to a notion of structural 'predetermination' [i have a question, though, about whether their interlocutors are speaking at cross-purposes--Gramsci is speaking of the 'trade union', whereas Burawoy seems to be speaking about 'collective bargaining'/labor agreement. but ultimately this isn't as important as the issue at hand--again, the spectre of overstatement]

(131): Walt Disney at the HUAC--trying to make a communist out of Mickey Mouse!

(133): key--here we get into dangerous territory; they want to talk about the 'hegemony of capital' as relational, dynamic, etc. of course--and to some extent what they have done is important. but within limits. and the critical thing, also, is to decide where we will place those limits. their framing suggests something much more loose than seems legitimate.

(133-134): three provisions of the contract

1. prerogatives of management--labor or management?
   
2. union's freedom of action--right to resist and ability to impose sanctions
3. methods for handling disputes--what kind of grievance procedure?

(139-141): six indexes for measuring prolabor vs. procapital tendencies

1. management prerogatives--management or labor?
   
2. right to strike
3. contract term--long or short?
   
4. trade-off provision
5. grievance procedure--shop floor, or not?

(141-142): key argument--they find a 'sharp' difference between the Communist-led international unions and the others. this is incompatible with the 'functionalist' argument. [yes. but is not incompatible with a larger claim about structural determination]

(144): we want to control, also, across the four time periods:

1. immediate pre-WWII years of the Great Depression
2. the WWII years
3. immediate postwar offensive of organized labor, coupled with right-wing resurgence in Congress and Taft-Hartley in 1947
4. advent of the Cold War, attacks on Communist-led unions

(147): repression of communists--in January 1948, the CIO board votes to endorse Truman--this marks the beginning of the end for Communists within the CIO, in a sense. by late 1949 they vote to expel unions who follow Communist line. By late 1950, 11 miscreant unions are thrown out. 1954 is the coup de grace, when communist-infiltrated unions can be deprived of rights under the NLRB.

(149): KEY--nonetheless, even taking into account the official CP line during WWII, and all this--communists were more militant. this is remarkable, and very important.

(152-153): key--why is this? because unionists' were, and had to be, accountable to their rank-and-file. so it was the leadership of the CP that shifted, but the rank-and-file couldn't move, with them.

(156): further controls don't remove this 'stark' effect

(158): KEY--functionalist arguments must ignore the mechanisms by which 'structrual determination' happens--this, they're arguing, is to do violence to the notion of 'sociohistorical' causality. [i accept this as a critical intervention, with my earlier reservations noted. very useful.]

Chapter Six

(160-161): what difference does democracy make? perception that autocratic unions are more 'efficient'.

(162-163): important--they are arguing that democracy, actually, is critical to the forging of a coherent 'class identity' (which will, in turn, be critical to union power).

(165): argument--democracy gives you prolabor contracts.

(174, 179-180): argument--UE best, UAW second, and USWA a distant third on prolabor measures and wages, too.

(184): important--trade unionism is not, unlike some arguments, inherently depoliticizing. if it were so, how could you explain the breadth of political consciousness across trade unions?

(187): the Communists were least well-paid of all the organizers

(187-188): key--analysis shows that union democracy makes a real difference in the daily lives of workers. the larger theoretical claim, here, is that political relations within classes (given objective limits and possibilities') are relatively autonomous determinants of the relations between classes. [again, everything rests on the limits--but insofar as we agree to this, i have no real issue with this way of framing things. in the FN, also, they are acknowledging that they have abstracted away from employer's resistance, etc.--all of which would be one way into the question of 'objective conditions' and the State]

Other

(210): argument--communists and democratic unions fought for women's rights, as well

(225): UE was reluctant to fight for blacks' rights, for fear of opening a second front

(227-228): Local 600 and a thoroughgoing commitment to interracial community

(231): the Left-wing was central to interracial solidarity

(234-235): for most of its two decades of existence, CIO was a tremendous force for interracial solidarity (though it was hardly monolithically good, in this regard)

(254-255): CP and the racial question--it is critical to distinguish between what the leaders were saying, and what the activists were doing (the latter were the most consistent and principled in fighting for the rights of black workers)

(256): Operation Dixie, 1946--faded soon after it started, precisely because the CIO leadership was anxious to ban political agitation. it fell in on itself, more-or-less, as a result.

(264-265): overtly anti-Communist phase in CIO history begins from 1946 (this is also the date that Truman begins the government's loyalty program, under pressure from right-wing Congress). After the defeat of Henry Wallace, these escalate (Wallace had held massive interracial meetings in the South)

Conclusion

(266-269): summary of the book's findings

(271): Harry Bridges on 1949 explusion of the UE

(273): key--the 'difference' it could have made, had the Communists cohered [the analytical trouble, though, is when you treat this, as is implied, as simple contingency. Davis' formulation is more attractive, for this reason--you want to be able to explain this. without losing the sense of possibility and contingency, certainly. there is also, here, little discussion of the CP's own follies--very different discussion of their support of Wallace, for example]

(274): after the purges, in 1950 AFL was twice the size of the CIO

(275): without the Reds, 'Jim-crowism' in the CIO

(276-277): CIO's self-immolation left it powerless as industry, then, relocated [but here we have the spectre of the structural--could a powerful CIO have stopped this slide? how do we make sense of 'capital''s dominance, while accepting a partially contingent reading of this conjuncture?]

(278-287): "The Great Purge" of American Working Life

(286): one out of every five working people was put through screening, required to take an oath

(287288): key--argument, here, is that repression did not determine the fate of the CP. it was their incapacity in the face of this repression; their inability come up with a new strategy. specifically, a "corrupted internationalism" from 1945-1956--here focusing on two things: (1) reverse backing of Roosevelt-Wallace to back a third party ticket for Wallace, that destroyed the 'center-left alliance'; (2) going back into the mainstream [after ten pages of documenting repression, this is odd. and more importantly, it is unclear that these were the strategic blunders. entirely inverts Davis' argument, to an extent--but he also dates the fall much earlier. ]

(293): why the CP did an about-face in December 1947 and supported Wallace as a third party candidate, when they knew it would split the CIO? [clearly they have started the narrative of decline far too late--but let's think about this more, viz-a-viz the Davis]

(294): Cominform founded in October 1947--"united fronts from below"

Epilogue

(309-316): the debate over the 'Third Trade Union Federation' -- Foster saying the CP must stay within the trade union movement, and not make the mistake of the late 20's (shift to TUEL, from TUUL). an 'exquisite irony', because there he listened to the Comintern; had he listened to the same advice, he would have pushed for the 3rd Federation. implication, in this book, is that there was support amongst the trade unionists; moreover, that the communists could only have worked within their own trade union (election in Local 600 very close, in 1951) [anyway--all this has the character of guesswork, as they admit. not much use in pursuing this, right now]

---

TUEL: 1922-1929
TUUL: 1929-1935

James Matles
John Lewis
Walter Reuther--comes to be UAW president in 1946; by 1947, he wins a majority of the executive board.