History of Labor Relations Essays - AFLCIO, , Term Papers

History of Labor Relations Joshua Reynolds Everest University History of Labor Relations Who was one of the most effective union leaders during the 1930s and 1940s? Would this leader be effective now? Why or why not? John L. Lewis who was recognized as the voice of the labor movement decided to push for industrial organizing after he noticed the UMW membership was declining. After receiving persistent opposition from the American Federation of Labor, Lewis, Phillip Murray along with other union leaders created the successful Committee for Industrial Organizations. Lewis was voted to be a local delegate to the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) convention in 1906, which marked the beginning of Lewis' quick rise as a leader of laborers. In 1909, he would serve, successively, as president of the Panama local of the United Mine Workers of America, and later as a lobbyist for the UMW. The following year he would be elected as an Illinois representative on UMW's state legislature. He took a national position in the American Federation of Labor (AFL), as an organizer, in 1911. In five years, Lewis was the UMWA convention's pro-tem president and appointed chief statistician for the union. In 1917, John P. White resigned as president of the UMW, and vice president Frank J. Hayes succeeded him. President Hayes appointed Lewis vice president, but due to President Hayes' alcoholism, Lewis assumed Hayes' duties in 1919, by becoming acting president. He was elected president of the UMWA in 1920. In today's world, these leaders would not have the same effect as before. The government now regulates and has protective laws that have since calmed what Lewis was opposing. Who is one of the most effective contemporary union leaders (from the 1970s to today)? Trade unions' relationship with the Labour Party also changed. After 1979 an electoral college gave unions a direct vote for the first time in the election of the Labour Party leader and deputy. The Labour leadership's quest for electability in a period of Conservative dominance saw it shift from a left-wing programmer at the beginning of the 1980s to gradually accept many of the Conservative changes. From Labor's link with unions having been seen as an electoral asset in the mid-1970s, the Conservatives had turned it into an electoral liability by skillfully exploiting and exaggerating the so-called 'Winter of Discontent' under the Labour government in 1978-79. How do the union leaders of today compare to those of the 1930s and 1940s? The changing conditions of the 1980s and 1990s undermined the position of organized labor, which now represented a shrinking share of the work force. While more than one-third of employed people belonged to unions in 1945, union membership fell to 24.1 percent of the U.S. work force in 1979 and to 13.9 percent in 1998. Dues increases, continuing union contributions to political campaigns, and union members' diligent voter-turnout efforts kept unions' political power from ebbing as much as their membership. But court decisions and National Labor Relations Board rulings allowing workers to withhold the portion of their union dues used to back, or oppose, political candidates, undercut unions' influence. Management, feeling the heat of foreign and domestic competition, is today less willing to accede to union demands for higher wages and benefits than in earlier decades. It also is much more aggressive about fighting unions' attempts to organize workers. Strikes were infrequent in the 1980s and 1990s, as employers became more willing to hire strikebreakers when unions walk out and to keep them on the job when the strike was over. References: Holley, W.H. Ross, W.H. (2017). The Labor Relations Process. (11th edition.) Mason,OH: South-Western Cengage Learning. ISBN: 9781337521727