Reference no: EM13759518

Objectives

Students will be able to:

6.1  Recognize and be able to analyze the role of unions in the work situation, and the different types of unions there are in both the U.S. and abroad;

6.2  Understand and be able to analyze the role of entrepreneurship and small business ownership in U.S. employment

6.3 Be aware of and be able to analyze regional income and job disparities in the U.S. and the use of government subsidies to business to lure investment;

6.4 Know and be able to analyze the relationship between the U.S. Civil Rights movement and the U.S. labor movement

Professor's Overiew of Module 6

The readings for this module (Adler, chapters 5-8) center around four broad themes:  (1) Archie's entrepreneurial climb to the top with his own company that eventually grew into a big business; and (2) unions, particularly an abnormally corrupt segment of the labor movement, the northern New Jersey Teamsters union; and (3) luring northern business operations to the southern states through incentives; and (4) race relations in the south and racist hiring practices. 

Entrepreneurs like Archie are often seen as "American heroes," idolized for creating businesses and jobs.  And Archie did create a going concern that provided jobs.  However, he "cut a lot of corners" and engaged in some crimes along the way.  As an ambitious would-be businessman facing an intensely competitive environment, Archie raised money any way he could, including false billing for items, buying and selling on the black market, selling stolen goods, and other forms of petty crime.  In the end he spent time in prison for his illegalities.  That said, he did play the role of entrepreneur, creating a new business that provided employment to many.  (Note that his crimes, while very real, were somewhat "small potatoes" compared to the crimes engaged in by big businesses like Westinghouse and GE when they colluded with the electrical utilities to keep energy-efficient fluorescent bulbs off the market to boost utility profits by charging customers many millions in unnecessary lighting costs.) 

As you read about Archie's building of his company, it should be apparent that he was often "making it up as he went along," didn't really know how to run his business in a modern and efficient manner, and ultimately depended on hiring other skilled individuals who helped to make his company a more efficient and modern enterprise.  It should also be apparent how lucky he was -- placed within a market that was growing exponentially in the 1950s, making company success infinitely easier.  As is often the case, luck and fortunate timing had a great deal to do with the ultimate fortunes of both Archie and his company. 

Also note how Archie ran his company in the early days -- personally knowing all his employees, making pre-payday loans when necessary, and in general running it according to his idiosyncratic desires, rather than on cold, rational grounds like modern corporations are run.  But he also provided superior service and a personal relationship with customers, unlike his large corporate competitors. 

In short, Archie's company was in some ways emblematic of the way a number of companies started and grew in the immediate post-World War II United States.  As you read the story of Archie and Universal Manufacturing, use it to help you ponder the role that small businesses and entrepreneurs play -- good and bad -- on American society and most particularly on American workers. 

The second topic concerns unions.  In the reading for the last module, we ran into the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), or "Wobblies," who conducted the famous Paterson Silk strike in the early 1910s.  The IWW believed in organizing all workers into "one big union" to fight for the interests of the working class.  They were very radical in their ideology, and believed that the capitalist system was inherently exploitative of workers.  The Wobblies never built a large permanent organization, but they did conduct some of the most impressive mass actions in the history of the U.S.  They were scrupulously democratic, and opposed all forms of discrimination or racism.  For temporary periods (such as the "Bread and Roses" strike in Lawrence, Mass. and [less successfully] the Paterson silk strike), they were able to pull together immigrants from many countries, speaking many different languages, into a united struggle, something that seldom happened in a country where workers are so easily divided from each other along racial or ethnic or migrant status. 

In the readings for this module, we encounter more modern unions, primarily the Teamsters Union.  The American Federation of Labor - Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) is an "umbrella" federation of most unions in the country.  In the reading, the Teamsters are expelled from the AFL-CIO for corruption.  The northern New Jersey branch of the Teamsters was extremely corrupt, led by Anthony "Tony Pro" Provenzano, a gangster.  The other union featured (less prominently) is the International Union of Electrical Workers (IUE), a union not infiltrated by organized crime: a more honest, much more typical union. 

As you do the reading, it is important for you to understand that the northern New Jersey Teamsters is not representative of the vast majority of unions in this country.  Virtually all unions have no connection to organized crime; in fact, mob infiltration of businesses is more common than mob infiltration of unions.  Yet, the northern NJ Teamsters were indeed headed by mobsters, with the unfortunate results you read about in the reading.  Mollie belonged to a Teamsters local, although she would have preferred switching over to a "clean," genuine union like the IUE (not a mob family posing as a labor union). 

Thus, we see elements of corruption in both the business and union side of the American economy in the reading for this module.  Corruption and crime are fairly frequent features of the American landscape, particularly in the commercial (and political) arena(s).  These too are part of the American scene; in the case of Mollie's job, they provide a backdrop to later, more momentous changes that lead to the ultimate destination of that job. 

The third issue raised in this module's reading is the uneven economic development of the country in the earlier times, and the subsequent attempts of the underdeveloped area (the south) to catch up.  Most of the industry of the country prior to the 1960s was in the north; emerging from a system of slavery and a plantation economy, the south had a relatively stagnant and low-wage economy.  Poverty was rampant, particularly for the African-American descendants of slaves, many of whom had been sharecroppers living at subsistence levels.  But even among white people, poverty was widespread. 

Beginning in the 1960s, southern states began to try to lure business investment from the north, primarily through government subsidies such as tax breaks, worker training programs, free buildings, and the like.  The "BAWI" program you read about in Mississippi during this time was a typical -- and early -- example of what southern states were doing during this time.  The "pitch" to northern companies to lure them to the south was primarily built around claimed cost advantages:  low taxes and even no taxes for a period of time, very cheap labor, no unions or few unions to help workers raise wages, cheap land or free land, etc.  It was this program that Archie responded to when he decided to open a second plant in Mississippi. 

As you read about his program and this move, consider the pro's and con's of what was going on.  There were critics of this type of government inducement program:  (1)  local farmers, who worried about the loss of field hands; (2) "free market" ideologues, who felt that the government should not be involved in business matters like this and who therefore felt it was a form of "socialism," (3) up north, unions and union members who feared that this would lead to competition lowering wages, (4) northern workers and northern governments worried about "runaway plants" destroying their living standards and tax bases as companies fled to low-wage, low-tax areas, and (5) critics of "corporate welfare" who felt that government money should be going to those truly needy rather than wealthy business owners.  There were, of course, also boosters of this program, mainly businesses enjoying the tax breaks and local civic business-oriented entities in the south touting the new jobs and incomes.  Ponder these questions, and particularly think from a worker's point of view about who benefits and who loses from such government subsidy programs. 

One thing is certain:  industrial manufacturing did begin moving south in the 1970s and 1980s, fulfilling the fears of northern workers and unions in the 1980s and 1990s:  deindustrialization, loss of a tax base, high unemployment, and other symptoms affecting what came to be known as the "rust belt" in the north.  And also, the south began to industrialize, although many of the "runaway plants" to the south later ran away even from the south later, as we shall see later in the book. 

Labor was much cheaper in the south than the north, as noted in the book.  Why were wages so much lower?  One reason was of course the southern legacy of slavery and sharecropping, which dragged down wages for all.  The intense poverty made workers willing to work for very little.  Most southern states also enacted so-called "Right-to-Work" laws, making it illegal for a union and an employer whose workers it represented to sign a "union security clause" requiring payment of union dues at unionized facilities.  This weakened unions greatly, thereby weakening the ability of workers to join together in a union to increase their compensation and improve their working conditions.  Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the system of segregation and the high degree of racism in the south made it virtually impossible for black and white workers to join together to improve their conditions, through a union or otherwise.  "Divide and conquer" along racial lines worked very well to keep wages exceptionally low. 

The final issue raised in the reading is race relations and the racial hiring practices in the south. The 1960s was a period of intense unrest in the south concerning racism: The Civil Rights Movement, the Freedom Riders, the backlash of local racist groups like the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), murders of civil rights activists, and the like all dominated the political scene at the time.  This of course impacted the entire story of Universal's time in Mississippi, as you will discover more fully in future reading.  Universal had a "whites only" workforce at the beginning, and each step progressing toward greater equality was difficult and only accomplished through struggle. 

For this module you will view the video "At the River I Stand," which demonstrates the link between civil rights and union rights at the time in the south.  It features Dr. Martin Luther King's last battle, where he gave his life:  the struggle to unionize the sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee.  When viewing this video, consider both the alliance between organized labor (unions) and the civil rights movement, and the tensions or lack of complete congruence between the two movements, the labor movement and the civil rights movement.  Despite these tensions, there is no doubt that organized labor has become an institution standing for racial progress and greater equality within the country. 

Because this is a "double duty" week, you are assigned to write a paper as well as engage in the discussion. (As usual, discussion is due by or before 6 PM on Saturday; the paper is due 24 hours later, by or before 6 PM on Sunday.) The question you must answer for this assignment is the following:

QUESTION:

Mollie had a positive view of unions, believing they provided a "voice" and fairness at the workplace for working people.  At the same time, she did not like the particular so-called "union" she had at Universal Manufacturing, which was really an organized crime family front posing as a union, which provided little representation for its members.

What do you think of unions?  Are they good or bad?  Tally up all the positives you can think of concerning unions, and all the negatives.  Should public policy in the United States encourage unions and unionization, or should it discourage unionization?  Whatever position you take, be sure to lay out the reasons for your position and back it up with solid evidence and logical arguments.