Postwar PurgesI. The Problem

A. CommunismB. Corruption

II. Pressure from belowA. Popular anti-CommunismB. Democratic desires

III. Pressure from above A. Political windsB. Ambition & SensationalismC. New Laws

IV. Reds or Rackets?A. Anti-Communist purgeB. The War on GangsterismC. The Hollow core?

Radicalism

• Issues:

– Loyalty to U.S.

– Apologists for tyranny

– Undermines labor’s hard-won legitimacy

– Ambivalent attitude towards democracy

Police battle Minneapolis teamsters, 1934

Farrell Dobbs, chair, Central States’

DriversSocialist Workers’

Party

Corruption• Embezzlement

• Tolerate gang power

• Gangsters are seldom effective unionists– Exploit workers

for personal benefit

• Deny democracy, crush dissent– Teamsters– Laborers

Con Shea

Jimmy Hoffa

Dave Beck

Popular anti-Communism

• React to pressure, propaganda

– Government

– Church

• But also genuine concern about Communist control

– USSR expands control over Eastern Europe

– Suppresses Catholicism

– Stalin’s crimes exposed

UE workers vote to disaffiliate their local, 1949

Democratic Desires

• Rank and file workers rise up against the leaders of the International Longshoremen’s Association– East Coast dockworkers– Controlled by New York hit man Albert Anastasia– Kickbacks, favoritism, coercion, tyranny

Longshoremen stage wildcat strike, 1948

Rev. John Corridan, S.J., 1951

Political Winds

• House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), 1938-1975– Attacks domestic

Communists, socialists, liberals, & racial egalitarians

• World War II– Smith Act of 1940

• Election of 1948– Harry Truman (D)– Thomas Dewey (R)– Strom Thurmond

(Dix)– Henry Wallace (Prog)

Rep. Martin Dies (D-TX) exhibits criminal records of CIO officials

Scandals & Accusations

• Murder Inc.

• Garment unions contain both Communists and gangsters

• Hillman fights both

• Conservatives hope Lepke will implicate Hillman

Sidney HillmanACWA president

Louis “Lepke” Buchalter

Ambition & Sensationalism

• HUAC

• Kefauver, 1951

• McClellan, 1957-8

Bobby Kennedy, 1957

New Laws• Taft-Hartley Act, 1948

– Limits strikes, boycotts

– Restores federal labor injunctions

– Outlaws closed shop, allowed states to bar undermine union shops

– Unions officers must file affidavits swearing not to be Communists

• Landrum-Griffin Act, 1959– Regulates internal union affairs

– Forbids former-Communists and ex-cons from holding a union office for five years

• Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), 1970

Senator Robert Taft (R-OH)

Anti-Communist Purge• Major internal

fights:– UAW– Steelworkers

• Between 1949-51, CIO expels eleven unions, over one million members

• In 1955, CIO expels:– Seafarers– Marine Engineers

Harry Bridges defends Communist CIO unions, 1949

The War on Gangsterism

• Journalists, politicians, unionists themselves seek to stem corruption

• Targets fight back

• But the 1930s are over

• Government demands unions be responsible

Riesel describes his blinding, 1956

The Hollow Core?

• AFL-CIO purges some of labor’s most aggressive unions

• What remains is conservative, mainstream, & reasonably honest

• But what remains is not equipped to deal with the insurgent corporations of the period 1980-present.