Timothy J Minchin
Biographic Data
| ID | 301212 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Timothy J Minchin |
| GIVEN NAMES | Timothy J |
| FAMILY NAME | Minchin |
| SIGNATURE | MINCHIN T J |
| AFFILIATIONS | La Trobe University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-6312-3137 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 64 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 37 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 64 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1997 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Making us whole again: History and the United Auto Workers (UAW) ‘Big Three’ strike of 2023
This article explores the 2023 strike in the USA’s auto industry, a major confrontation. The dispute was significant as marking the first time in its 88-year history that the United Auto Workers (UAW) struck all of the Big Three (General Motors, Ford and Stellantis) at once. While most media coverage focused on the present or future, the strike was also deeply shaped by past events. Drawing on the UAW’s ‘bargaining archives’ and other sources, th…
No Contract, No Coffee: Worker upsurge, corporate resistance, and the long fight to unionize Starbucks
In November 2025, Starbucks Workers United launched a “Red Cup Rebellion” across the U.S. Expanding to 130 cities, the strike represented the biggest bout of industrial action at Starbucks since the company’s foundation (1971). At the time, reporting linked the walkout to the post-2021 unionization drive, originating in Buffalo. By November 2025, Starbucks workers had won over 650 elections, but the company had still not signed a contract, precip…
A big deal: The Hyundai battery plant raid and the deeper labor history of the foreign-owned auto sector in the U.S
On 4 September 2025, hundreds of federal agents stormed a Hyundai electric vehicle battery plant in Georgia, arresting 475 workers − 300 of them Korean nationals – in the largest immigration raid at a single location in U.S. history. Described by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution as a ‘big deal,’ the raid attracted widespread attention, in the U.S. and beyond. Although most accounts linked it to the Trump administration’s anti-immigration policies…
A Great Moral Crusade? The United Auto Workers and the Fight for Civil Rights in the United States
This article explores the relationship between the United Auto Workers, America's largest industrial union, and the African-American Civil Rights Movement. Contributing fresh perspectives, it presents a focused and detailed account of the union's support for the Civil Rights Movement. The analysis shows that the UAW regarded the public fight for civil rights as a ‘great moral crusade’. It played a significant role in the overlooked Detroit ‘Walk …
Inside the upsurge: Historical continuity and the Blue Bird Bus and Daimler Truck victories in the U.S. South
Long haul unionism: Southern labor history and the struggle to organize Volkswagen in Chattanooga, Tennessee
Beyond Norma Rae: How Puerto Rican and Southern White Women Fought for a Place in the American Working Class
An ardent conservationist: Walter Reuther and environmentalism in the United Auto Workers in the United States
This article explores the environmental activism of the United Auto Workers (UAW) in the United States under its long-serving president Walter Reuther.While Reuther has been recognised as a powerful figure in post-war liberalisman industry opponent dubbed him 'the most dangerous man in Detroit' due to the union's bargaining power-important aspects of his environmental activism have been overlooked.In the 1960s, the UAW was America's largest indus…
Auto Friction: Douglas Fraser's 1980 Trip to Japan and the Roots of the Foreign-Owned Auto Industry in the United States
This article explores a February 1980 trip to Japan by Douglas Fraser, the president of the United Automobile Workers. On the trip, Fraser met with the heads of Japan's biggest automakers, along with the prime minister and foreign affairs minister, pressing them to establish auto plants in the United States. Offering the first detailed examination of the trip — and the broader “build it here” campaign — this article argues that the visit was a cr…
A broad battle: Public opinion and the 1945–1946 General Motors strike
This article explores the 1945–1946 strike at General Motors, a massive dispute involving 320,000 workers. The 113-day walkout was the longest of the 1945–1946 strike wave, which saw over three million U.S. workers mobilize. A key feature of the strike–and one particularly overlooked–is public reaction. The strike secured widespread press coverage, and much of the United Automobile Workers’ (UAW) strategy revolved around appealing for public supp…
People Have the Right to Be Mad: Wildcat Strikes and Labor Relations in the Post-World War II Auto Industry
Writing on wildcat strikes, which were usually brief and under-reported, has been limited. This is especially the case in the auto industry, where postwar labor relations were supposedly stable and staid, marked by high rates of unionization and collective bargaining. Scholars have stressed the landmark national contracts that the United Auto Workers (UAW) won in the post-World War II era, particularly with the Big Three automakers. Despite these…
Gigantic struggles: The battle to build the United Automobile Workers after the sit-down strikes, 1937–1945
This article examines the struggle to build the United Automobile Workers in the years after the sit-down strike of 1936-37 in Flint, Michigan.The strike, which historian Sidney Fine has called 'the most significant American labor conflict in the twentieth century,' has secured the lion's share of scholarly attention.While it was very important, much remained to be done to make the UAW an institution that represented almost all American autoworke…
A new labor movement? Assessing the worker upsurge in the contemporary U.S
This article explores the labor upsurge of the early 2020s and places it in an historical context.In the early 2020s, workers across the U.S. protested, organized, and walked out, part of an upsurge that produced remarkable results.There were union victories at some of the country's best-known corporations, including Starbucks, Amazon, Google, Apple, and Trader Joe's.Between 2021 and 2023, more than 360 Starbucks stores unionized, most through in…
Speed-Ups and Related Problems: The UAW and Grassroots Grievances in the Immediate Post-World War II Period
Scholarship on the United Automobile Workers - for many decades the largest industrial union in the USA - has focused heavily on the landmark wage and benefit gains that the union won, especially through pattern bargaining in the post-World War II era. The UAW has been praised as an "American Vanguard" that secured landmark wages and benefits for its members in widely publicised national contracts, especially in the 1940s and 1950s. This article …
The most troubled time in our history”: The presidency of Douglas Fraser and the decline of the UAW.’
This article explores the presidency of Douglas Fraser, who led the United Automobile Workers, America’s largest industrial union, from 1977–83. Unlike long-serving leader Walter Reuther, Fraser has received little scholarly attention, yet he headed the union at a decisive time. Between 1979 and 1983, the industry experienced a severe economic downturn, setting the stage for long-term decline. By 1982, over one-third of U.S. autoworkers were jobl…
A defining battle: The fight for $15 campaign and labor advocacy in the U.S
Notions of decline dominate scholarship on workers in the contemporary U.S. Labor has been pictured as “flat on its back,” framed by a narrative of loss that is linked to the long fall in union density. Through a detailed examination of the Fight for $15 campaign, this article challenges this narrative. Launched in 2012, within four years the labor-based drive had won over $68 billion in increased pay, helping some 22 million workers. By 2021, ei…
A Gallant Fight”: The UAW and the 1970 General Motors Strike
On 15 September 1970, over 400,000 workers struck General Motors (GM), the biggest corporation in the world. It was a massive walkout, lasting sixty-seven days and affecting 145 GM plants in the US and Canada. GM lost more than $1 billion in profits, and the impact on the US economy was considerable. Despite the strike's size, it has been understudied. Fifty years later, this article provides a re-assessment of this landmark dispute, the first to…
Invisible workers: 9/11 And American labour
The attacks of 11 September 2001 have usually been interpreted purely as a terrorist event, yet they had a labour dimension that has been overlooked. The World Trade Center was home to 430 companies and over 35,000 employees. The attack targets were workplaces, and most of those killed were at work. As the twentieth anniversary of the attacks approaches – and as the coronavirus tragedy focuses fresh attention on New York, dubbed ‘Ground Zero’ aga…
The factory of the future’ Historical continuity and labor rights at Tesla
Literature on Tesla, the electric car-maker, has been overwhelmingly positive. Largely written by reporters or technology enthusiasts, the focus is on innovation – how Tesla is shaking up the industry, acting as a ‘disrupter of Detroit’, and launching an electric car ‘revolution’. Tesla’s signature plant in Fremont, California has also been viewed, as CEO Elon Musk puts it, as the ‘factory of the future’. This article changes the focus, looking a…
A successful union in an era of decline: Interrogating the growth of the Service Employees International Union, 1980-1995
Between 1980 and 1995, while John Sweeney was president, the membership of the Service Employees International Union rose from around 600,000 to over 1.1 million. It continued to increase after 1995, making the SEIU the largest and fastest-growing union in the country. This growth was remarkable because it occurred at a terrible time for unions, one where the overwhelming emphasis – in both the media and academic scholarship – was on labor’s decl…
A World Class Industry: Honda in Alabama and the Rise of the Foreign-Owned Auto Sector
This article provides the first in-depth historical case study of Honda’s assembly plant in Lincoln, Alabama. Established in 1999, the plant became one of the biggest auto factories in the US, employing over 4,500 workers. Drawing on a wide range of sources, including rare interviews with top company and state officials, it argues that the establishment of the plant did not just reflect financial subsidies, the prevailing view in the press (and l…
Look at Detroit: The United Auto Workers and the Battle to Organize Volkswagen in Chattanooga
On February 14, 2014, workers at Volkswagen’s new plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, voted 712 to 626 against being represented by the United Automobile Workers of America (UAW). The result capped one of the most high-profile organizing campaigns of recent years, with most media accounts anticipating a UAW victory, especially as VW had declared that it would not oppose the union. The VW election is also now attracting scholarly interest, with accou…
The Color Line and the Assembly Line: Managing Race in the Ford Empire
The Color Line and the Assembly Line is a study of Ford Motor Company, a dominant force in the twentieth-century American economy. In 1927, for example, “Ford was the largest employer in the largest industry in the largest economy in the world” (p. 4). Elizabeth D. Esch focuses particularly on Ford's racial hiring practices in the interwar years, challenging long-standing claims about the company's willingness to hire black workers. Ford employed…
Labor rights are civil rights: Inter-racial unionism and the struggle to unionize Nissan in Canton, Mississippi
On 4 August 2017, workers at Nissan’s plant in Canton, Mississippi, voted 2244 to 1307 against being represented by the United Automobile Workers of America (UAW). The organizing campaign in Canton – which began shortly after the plant opened in 2003 – was one of the most important in recent labor history, and it attracted national and international media coverage. It also mobilized some high-profile supporters, including actor Danny Glover, musi…
Showdown at Nissan: The 1989 campaign to organize Nissan in Smyrna, Tennessee, and the rise of the transplant sector
In July 1989, workers at Nissan’s plant in Smyrna, Tennessee, voted 1622 to 711 against being represented by the United Automobile Workers of America (UAW). At the time, many reporters saw the well-publicized Nissan vote – dubbed a ‘showdown’ by the New York Times – as a defining moment in modern labor history. The election deserves further exploration, especially as it played a key role in establishing the non-union ‘transplant’ sector. UAW lead…
Showdown at Nissan: The 1989 campaign to organize Nissan in Smyrna, Tennessee, and the rise of the transplant sector
In July 1989, workers at Nissan’s plant in Smyrna, Tennessee, voted 1622 to 711 against being represented by the United Automobile Workers of America (UAW). At the time, many reporters saw the well-publicized Nissan vote – dubbed a ‘showdown’ by the New York Times – as a defining moment in modern labor history. The election deserves further exploration, especially as it played a key role in establishing the non-union ‘transplant’ sector. UAW lead…
It knocked this city to its knees’: The closure of Pillowtex Mills in Kannapolis, North Carolina and the decline of the US textile industry
This article explores the closure of Pillowtex Mills (formerly Cannon Mills) in Kannapolis in July 2003, a mass layoff that was the largest in the state's history, with almost 5000 workers losing their jobs. The Pillowtex closure was part of the broader demise of the textile sector, which lost 700,000 jobs between 1994 and 2002, the bulk of them in the southern states. It was also part of the wider decline of manufacturing industries in the Unite…
Permanent Replacements and the Breakdown of the "Social Accord" in Calera, Alabama, 1974–1999
(2001). Permanent Replacements and the Breakdown of the 'Social Accord' in Calera, Alabama, 1974–1999. Labor History: Vol. 42, No. 4, pp. 371-396
Look at Detroit: The United Auto Workers and the Battle to Organize Volkswagen in Chattanooga
On February 14, 2014, workers at Volkswagen’s new plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, voted 712 to 626 against being represented by the United Automobile Workers of America (UAW). The result capped one of the most high-profile organizing campaigns of recent years, with most media accounts anticipating a UAW victory, especially as VW had declared that it would not oppose the union. The VW election is also now attracting scholarly interest, with accou…
The factory of the future’ Historical continuity and labor rights at Tesla
Literature on Tesla, the electric car-maker, has been overwhelmingly positive. Largely written by reporters or technology enthusiasts, the focus is on innovation – how Tesla is shaking up the industry, acting as a ‘disrupter of Detroit’, and launching an electric car ‘revolution’. Tesla’s signature plant in Fremont, California has also been viewed, as CEO Elon Musk puts it, as the ‘factory of the future’. This article changes the focus, looking a…
A pivotal role? The AFL–CIO and the 2008 presidential election
This article explores the role that organized labor played in the landmark presidential election of 2008. In particular, it explores the work of the American Federation of Labor–Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL–CIO), which ran its biggest ever election campaign in 2008, spending upwards of $250 million. While there is a vibrant emerging literature on the election, particularly from political scientists and former reporters, labor’s role …
Labor is back?’: The AFL-CIO during the presidency of John J. Sweeney, 1995–2009
This article assesses the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) during the presidency of John J. Sweeney, which lasted from 1995 until 2009. Drawing on a wide range of sources, including press accounts and the AFL-CIO's own papers, it provides one of the first scholarly assessments of the entire Sweeney presidency. Sweeney won office in the first contested election in the AFL-CIO's history, and he came into p…
Labor's Empty Gun’: Permanent Replacements and the International Paper Company Strike of 1987–88
In June 1987, managers at International Paper Company (IP) permanently replaced more than 2,200 union members who had gone on strike after resisting the firm's demands for extensive concessions. Previous accounts of this dispute, which lasted until October 1988, have focused on Jay, Maine, where around half the strikers were located. This study gives a fuller history, detailing the involvement of strikers in De Pere, Wisconsin and Lock Haven, Pen…
Black Activism, the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and the Racial Integration of the Southern Textile Industry
Inside the upsurge: Historical continuity and the Blue Bird Bus and Daimler Truck victories in the U.S. South
Long haul unionism: Southern labor history and the struggle to organize Volkswagen in Chattanooga, Tennessee
A new labor movement? Assessing the worker upsurge in the contemporary U.S
This article explores the labor upsurge of the early 2020s and places it in an historical context.In the early 2020s, workers across the U.S. protested, organized, and walked out, part of an upsurge that produced remarkable results.There were union victories at some of the country's best-known corporations, including Starbucks, Amazon, Google, Apple, and Trader Joe's.Between 2021 and 2023, more than 360 Starbucks stores unionized, most through in…
A successful union in an era of decline: Interrogating the growth of the Service Employees International Union, 1980-1995
Between 1980 and 1995, while John Sweeney was president, the membership of the Service Employees International Union rose from around 600,000 to over 1.1 million. It continued to increase after 1995, making the SEIU the largest and fastest-growing union in the country. This growth was remarkable because it occurred at a terrible time for unions, one where the overwhelming emphasis – in both the media and academic scholarship – was on labor’s decl…
A World Class Industry: Honda in Alabama and the Rise of the Foreign-Owned Auto Sector
This article provides the first in-depth historical case study of Honda’s assembly plant in Lincoln, Alabama. Established in 1999, the plant became one of the biggest auto factories in the US, employing over 4,500 workers. Drawing on a wide range of sources, including rare interviews with top company and state officials, it argues that the establishment of the plant did not just reflect financial subsidies, the prevailing view in the press (and l…
The Color Line and the Assembly Line: Managing Race in the Ford Empire
The Color Line and the Assembly Line is a study of Ford Motor Company, a dominant force in the twentieth-century American economy. In 1927, for example, “Ford was the largest employer in the largest industry in the largest economy in the world” (p. 4). Elizabeth D. Esch focuses particularly on Ford's racial hiring practices in the interwar years, challenging long-standing claims about the company's willingness to hire black workers. Ford employed…
Labor rights are civil rights: Inter-racial unionism and the struggle to unionize Nissan in Canton, Mississippi
On 4 August 2017, workers at Nissan’s plant in Canton, Mississippi, voted 2244 to 1307 against being represented by the United Automobile Workers of America (UAW). The organizing campaign in Canton – which began shortly after the plant opened in 2003 – was one of the most important in recent labor history, and it attracted national and international media coverage. It also mobilized some high-profile supporters, including actor Danny Glover, musi…
Us is spelled U.S.’: The Crafted With Pride campaign and the fight against deindustrialization in the textile and apparel industry
This article explores the ‘Crafted With Pride in the U.S.A.’ campaign, a high-profile effort to encourage American consumers to buy domestically made textiles and apparel. Using a wide range of sources, this study examines an important campaign that has received little scholarly attention. Launched in 1984, the initial seven-year operation cost $100 million, and the funds were used to sponsor Miss America and to purchase national advertising on n…
Organizing a Labor Law Violator: The J.P. Stevens Campaign and the Struggle to Unionize the US South, 1963–1983
Between 1963 and 1983, unions in the US launched a major campaign to try to organize J.P. Stevens, the nation's second-largest textile firm. Labor leaders felt that if they could organize Stevens, other gains in the nonunion South would follow. Stevens resisted the campaign by firing and intimidating union supporters, repeatedly breaking labor laws in the process. This article examines the union's organizing efforts and argues that the campaign's…
It tears the heart right out of you”: Memories of Striker Replacement at International Paper Company in De Pere, Wisconsin, 1987–88
In the summer of 1987, more than 370 workers at Nicolet Paper Company in De Pere, Wisconsin, walked out on strike after refusing to agree to a wide range of concessions demanded by International Paper Company (IP), Nicolet's parent company. Within a few weeks, however, IP had permanently replaced the strikers, a tactic that became increasingly common in the 1980s. The author uses oral history interviews to provide a valuable, unique insight into …
Color Means Something”: Black Pioneers, White Resistance, and Interracial Unionism in the Southern Textile Industry, 1957–1980
(1998). “Color Means Something”: Black Pioneers, White Resistance, and Interracial Unionism in the Southern Textile Industry, 1957–1980. Labor History: Vol. 39, No. 2, pp. 109-133
Where Is Our Responsibility? Unions and Economic Change in the New England Textile Industry, 1870-1960
Journal Article Where Is Our Responsibility? Unions and Economic Change in the New England Textile Industry, 1870–1960. By William E Hartford. (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1996. xii, 256 pp. $35.00, ISBN 1-55849-022-1.) Get access Timothy J. Minchin Timothy J. Minchin Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge University, Cambridge, England Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History,…
New Views of Southern Unionization
Color Means Something”: Black Pioneers, White Resistance, and Interracial Unionism in the Southern Textile Industry, 1957–1980
(1998). “Color Means Something”: Black Pioneers, White Resistance, and Interracial Unionism in the Southern Textile Industry, 1957–1980. Labor History: Vol. 39, No. 2, pp. 109-133
What Do We Need a Union For? The TWUA in the South, 1945-1955
What Do We Need a Union For? The TWUA in the South, 1945-1955
Journal Article What Do We Need a Union For? The TWUA in the South, 1945–1955. By Timothy J. Minchin. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997. x, 285 pp. Cloth, $45.00, ISBN 0-8078-2317-1 and Like Night & Day: Unionization in a Southern Mill Town. By Daniel J. Clark. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997. xii, 260 pp. Cloth, $49.95, ISBN 0-8078-2306-6 Get access David L. Carlton David L. Carlton Vanderbilt University…
What Do We Need a Union for: The TWUA in the South, 1945-1955
Federal Policy and the Racial Integration of Southern Industry, 1961–1980
In the last two decades, one of the central debates of civil rights historiography has concerned the role that the federal government played in securing the gains of the civil rights era. Historians have often been critical of the federal government's inaction, pointing out that it was only pressure from the civil rights movement itself that prompted federal action against Jim Crow. Other scholars have studied the civil rights record of the feder…
Black Activism, the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and the Racial Integration of the Southern Textile Industry
Torn Apart: Permanent Replacements and the Crossett Strike of 1985
IN THE SUMMER OF 1985, OVER 1,100 WORKERS at Georgia-Pacific paper company in Crossett experienced three month strike that bitterly divided their small community in southern Arkansas. Like many other strikes in 1980s, these divisions were heightened by company's attempts to hire permanent replacements for striking workers. The introduction of replacement workers pushed many union members to abandon strike and return to work in last-ditch effort t…
Hiring the Black Worker: The Racial Integration of the Southern Textile Industry, 1960-1980
Journal Article Hiring the Black Worker: The Racial Integration of the Southern Textile Industry, 1960–1980. By Timothy J. Minchin. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999. xiv, 342 pp. Cloth, $49.95, ISBN 0-8078-2470-4. Paper, $19.95, ISBN 0-8078-4771-2.) Get access Eric Arnesen Eric Arnesen University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, Illinois Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of Amer…
Broken Spirits: Permanent Replacements and the Rumford Strike of 1986
union jobs, over 340 replacements had been hired. In the small mill community of less than 8,000 people, the rifts created by the strike were deep and lasting. You've got people who don't speak to each families that don't speak to each other, reflected local union president Don Barker more than two years after the strike. It will not heal for a generation .... People don't forget very quick when they've been treated wrong. Because of what the com…
Hiring the Black Worker: The Racial Integration of the Southern Textile Industry 1960-1980
Permanent Replacements and the Breakdown of the "Social Accord" in Calera, Alabama, 1974–1999
(2001). Permanent Replacements and the Breakdown of the 'Social Accord' in Calera, Alabama, 1974–1999. Labor History: Vol. 42, No. 4, pp. 371-396
Black Workers Remember: An Oral History of Segregation, Unionism, and the Freedom Struggle
The Color of Work: The Struggle for Civil Rights in the Southern Paper Industry, 1945-1980
The Color of Work: The Struggle for Civil Rights in the Southern Paper Industry, 1945-1980
Journal Article The Color of Work: The Struggle for Civil Rights in the Southern Paper Industry, 1945–1980 Get access The Color of Work: The Struggle for Civil Rights in the Southern Paper Industry, 1945–1980. By Minchin Timothy J.. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001. xiv, 277 pp. Cloth, $55.00, isbn0-8078-2618-9. Paper, $24.95, isbn0-8078-4933-2.) Nan Elizabeth Woodruff Nan Elizabeth Woodruff Pennsylvania State UniversityUniv…
The General Textile Strike of 1934: From Maine to Alabama
The Color of Work: The Struggle for Civil Rights in the Southern Paper Industry, 1945-1980
No Retreat, No Surrender: Concessions, Resistance, and the End of the Postwar Settlement
Julius Getman, The Betrayal of Local 14: Paperworkers, Politics, and Permanent Replacements (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998) Tom Juravich and Kate Bronfenbrenner, Ravenswood: The Steetworkers ' Victory and the Revival of American Labor (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999) Timothy J. Minchin, Forging aCommon Bond: Labor and Environmental Activism During the BASF Lockout (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2003) Jonathon D. Rosen…
The Color of Work: The Struggle for Civil Rights in the Southern Paper Industry, 1945-1980
It tears the heart right out of you”: Memories of Striker Replacement at International Paper Company in De Pere, Wisconsin, 1987–88
In the summer of 1987, more than 370 workers at Nicolet Paper Company in De Pere, Wisconsin, walked out on strike after refusing to agree to a wide range of concessions demanded by International Paper Company (IP), Nicolet's parent company. Within a few weeks, however, IP had permanently replaced the strikers, a tactic that became increasingly common in the 1980s. The author uses oral history interviews to provide a valuable, unique insight into …
The Color of Work: The Struggle for Civil Rights in the Southern Paper Industry, 1945-1980
Forging a Common Bond: Labor and Environmental Activism during the Basf Lockout
The author studies one of the longest labour disputes in American history, a lockout involving the Oil, Chemical, and Atomic Workers' International Union and BASF, a German-based chemical manufacturer. Minchin examines the range of tactics employed by the union
Organizing a Labor Law Violator: The J.P. Stevens Campaign and the Struggle to Unionize the US South, 1963–1983
Between 1963 and 1983, unions in the US launched a major campaign to try to organize J.P. Stevens, the nation's second-largest textile firm. Labor leaders felt that if they could organize Stevens, other gains in the nonunion South would follow. Stevens resisted the campaign by firing and intimidating union supporters, repeatedly breaking labor laws in the process. This article examines the union's organizing efforts and argues that the campaign's…
Labor's Empty Gun’: Permanent Replacements and the International Paper Company Strike of 1987–88
In June 1987, managers at International Paper Company (IP) permanently replaced more than 2,200 union members who had gone on strike after resisting the firm's demands for extensive concessions. Previous accounts of this dispute, which lasted until October 1988, have focused on Jay, Maine, where around half the strikers were located. This study gives a fuller history, detailing the involvement of strikers in De Pere, Wisconsin and Lock Haven, Pen…
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