a new trade union movement burst onto the scene in Brazil, bringing to an end almost one and a half decades of worker quiescence
For several decades following the CIO victories, three employer responses - relocation of production (disinvestment in union strongholds), process innovations (mainly automation), and "political exchange" (the promotion of "responsible" unionism and the repression of "irresponsible" unionism) - p…
On December 30, 1936, workers occupied General Motors' Fisher Body Plants No. 1 and No. 2 in Flint, Michigan. By March 12, 1937, General Motors (GM; the United States' largest industrial corporation with vast financial resources and a network of anti-union spies) was forced to capitulate and sign a…
[...] The U.S. labor movement's success in having open immigration outlawed in the 1920s set the stage for the stabilization of the U.S. working class and contributed to the subsequent CIO (Congress of Industrial Organizations) victories in the 1930s. At the same time, however, this U.S. labor move…
[...] we can draw on Immanuel Wallerstein's notion that historical capitalism is characterized by a "system-level problem." That is, profits can be made - even with the partial de-commodification of labor and the establishment of expensive social contracts - as long as those concessions are made to…
