Rebel Rank and File

Labor Militancy and Revolt from Below in the Long 1970s

Bibliographic Data

ID5703493
AuthorsM Halpern (0000-0002-1760-0868), M B Halpern (Henderson State University, corresponding author)
Year2011
Volume98
Issue3
Pages910-911
Publication date2011-12-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of American History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0021-8723 • E-ISSN: 1945-2314
PublisherOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/jahist/jar497
OpenAlexW2321807919
LanguageEN
Citations received11

Civil rights scholars use the term “long 1960s” to refer to the origins of mass civil rights protest in the 1940s and 1950s and to the continuation of such movements into the early 1970s. For the authors of the edited volume Rebel Rank and File, the term “long 1970s” highlights an upsurge of strike activity in the United States that began in 1965 and ended in 1981. The work focuses on rank-and-file movements among workers in diverse private industries and the public sector that led to numerous unauthorized and authorized strikes. The book addresses militant worker responses to employers’ offensive aimed at reversing a decline in profits and a slowing of labor productivity gains. Rank-and-file movements challenged management efforts to control costs and work processes and also criticized or sought to overturn union leaderships whose response to the management offensive was conciliatory. Although workers won several strikes, such as a miners’ strike for safety legislation, and changes in union leadership, the essays argue that as the economic downturns of 1973–1975 and 1979–1981 brought an end to the upsurge in labor activity, management emerged as the winner of the overall battle. President Ronald Reagan's 1981 firing of striking air traffic controllers put a dramatic punctuation mark to the upsurge and, despite the impressive September 19, 1981, Solidarity Day protest, initiated a steep decline in labor militancy. The gradual decline in union density, underway since the mid-1950s, accelerated and continues today

Battle · Economics · Legislation · Management · Offensive · Political economy · Political science · Sociology · History · Labor Movements and Unions · Law

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