The Progressive Movement The Progressive Movement Challenged The Robber Challenged The Robber Barons Of The Gilded Barons Of The Gilded

AgeAge““It is essential that there be an It is essential that there be an

organization of labor.organization of labor.

This is an era of organization. This is an era of organization.

Capital organizes and therefore labor Capital organizes and therefore labor must organize.”must organize.”

““The object of government is the The object of government is the welfare of the peoplewelfare of the people.”.”

Theodore Roosevelt

ENDING THE LONG HISTORY OF FEDERAL JUDGES BLOCKING UNION ORGGANIZING AND STRIKES WITH INJUNCTIONS

ENDING THE LONG HISTORY OF FEDERAL JUDGES BLOCKING UNION ORGGANIZING AND STRIKES WITH INJUNCTIONS

The Norris-LaGuardia Act of 1932 outlawed the issuance of injunctions in labor disputes by federal courts.

THE RIGHT OF WORKERS TO ORGANIZE AND JOIN A UNION PROTECTED BY FEDERAL LAW

THE RIGHT OF WORKERS TO ORGANIZE AND JOIN A UNION PROTECTED BY FEDERAL LAW

The National Labor Relations Act 1935 (NLRA, the "Wagner Act") Private sector workers CAN ORGANIZE a union and establishes the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to hold elections. Makes it ILLEGAL FOR EMPLOYERS TO:

• Discriminate against union workers • Retaliate against them for engaging in organizing campaigns or other "concerted activities", • To form "company unions"• To refuse to engage in collective bargaining with a certified union

National Labor Relations Act 1935

FDR’s NATIONAL MINIMUM WAGE, CHILD LABOR, OVERTIME AND MAXIMUM HOURSFDR’s NATIONAL MINIMUM WAGE, CHILD

LABOR, OVERTIME AND MAXIMUM HOURS

•Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938

• 44-hour seven-day workweek• established a national minimum wage• guaranteed "time-and-a-half" for overtime in certain jobs, • prohibited most employment of minors in "oppressive child labor"

The The Union movementUnion movement empowered all workers empowered all workers Caused a political backlash from white supremacists Caused a political backlash from white supremacists

Jim Crow economic, social and political order in the Slave Jim Crow economic, social and political order in the Slave states. states.

The Dixiecrats/Republicans, KKK and the John Birch Society The Dixiecrats/Republicans, KKK and the John Birch Society saw no place for blacks, Catholics or Jews in our nation.saw no place for blacks, Catholics or Jews in our nation.

FDR’s January 11, 1944 message to the Congress AMERICA’s SECOND BILL OF RIGHTS

FDR’s January 11, 1944 message to the Congress AMERICA’s SECOND BILL OF RIGHTS

In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We

have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a

new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all—regardless of

station, race, or creed.

REPUBLICANS AND DIXIECRATS TAKE CONTROL OF CONGRESS PASS TAFT-HARTLEY OVER TRUMAN’S VETO.

REPUBLICANS AND DIXIECRATS TAKE CONTROL OF CONGRESS PASS TAFT-HARTLEY OVER TRUMAN’S VETO.

The Taft-Hartley Act 1947 ("Labor-Management Relations Act")

Loosened some restrictions on employers, New limitations on unions.

•Prohibits jurisdictional strikes and •Secondary boycotts by unions, and •Authorizes individual states to pass "right-to-work laws", •Regulates pension & other union benefit plans•Federal courts have jurisdiction to enforce collective bargaining agreements. •Changed NLRB election procedures in favor of employers

Wagner act passed in 1937 Union membership increased from 12% to 35% of the

workforceTaft -Hartley passed in 1947

Membership down from 35% to 12%. Reagan breaks air traffic controllers union in 1981 Corporations and politicians are emboldened to bust

unions

2005 201222 States With Right To Work Laws 24 States With Right To Work Laws

NEXT TARGETS

•MISSOURI•PENSYLVANIA•NEW HAMPSHIRE

George Orwell’s book 1984 served as a modelfor the creator of the term

‘Right to Work’

"Right-to-Work" laws starts in 1936 with Vance Muse

He opposed women's suffrage, child labor laws, integration and growing efforts to change the Southern political order, as represented in the threat of Roosevelt's New Deal.

Muse founded the Christian American Association with backing from Southern oil companies and industrialists DuPont brothers, J. Howard Pew of Sun Oil, Alfred Sloan of General Motors to fight unions and the New Deal.

Labor the CIO in particular opposed Jim Crow and demanded an end to segregation. Unions were an important political ally to FDR and the New Deal.

In 1945 Texas' right-to-work bill was signed into law. Trumpeting the message equating union growth with race-mixing and communism his work led to the passage of the nation's first right-to-work laws in 1944. In all, 14 states passed such legislation by 1947, when Section 14(b) of the Taft-Hartley Act passed

11 years later, Kansas also passed a right-to-work law, with the support of Texas-born energy businessman Fred Koch, who also viewed unions as vessels for communism and integration. Koch's sons Charles and David went on to form the Tea Party group Americans for Prosperity, which pushed for the Michigan right-to-work measure,

Fred Koch’s goal was the same as Vance Muse’s: REVERSING THE NEW DEAL

union-busting, stripping government benefits and eliminating taxes on the rich.

Koch was a leader of the Kansas Right-to-Work when the law passed in 1958

Koch co-founded the John Birch Society with eleven other industrialists,

The John Birch Society taught that: President Eisenhower was a Communist agent taking orders from Moscow; The Civil Rights movement was a Communist conspiracy and Martin Luther King took direct orders from Moscow;

The founder of the National Right To Work Committee in mid-1950s, Reed Larson,

came from Koch’s base in Wichita, Kansas — headquarters of Koch Industries.

Koch teamed up with Reed Larson to pass Kansas’ Right-to-Work law, and Reed

Larson’s "National Right to Work Committee" intertwined itself with Fred Koch’s

John Birch Society.

Year Before the Stock

Market Crash

Year Before the Stock

Market Crash

Reagan Cuts Top Tax Rate to 28%

Fires Striking WorkersPermits Media Monopolies

Growth of the Middle Class

FDR’s Top Tax Rate Over 90%Unions are Growing

New Deal & G.I. Bill Promotes Education & Housing

"We can have concentrated wealth

in the hands of a few

or we can have democracy.

But we cannot have both."

— Justice Louis D. Brandeis