Making Sense of the 1950’s Teamsters
The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations merged in 1955, with big talk and high hopes for organizing the remaining non-union strongholds in the nation’s economy. Three years later, they were laying off organizers on staff and settling into a routine, on the way to a long, slow decline towards a loss of power, influence and bargaining power. In New York City, though, the newly merged federation approached new union organizing with something like messianic zeal–pioneering new union organizing in the public sector and in health care, and fighting for a labor college and statewide system of socialized medicine–at least until the fiscal crisis. That broad sweep of history is, in a nutshell, what I’m researching for my next possible book project: a history of the New York City labor movement from the merger until the fiscal crisis. First, though, the AFL and CIO needed to merge. […]