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Labor Unions During The 1930s

731 Words3 Pages

It is a difficult task to challenge the social and economic policies of a country, especially one as patriotic as the United States during the post wartime Red scare era of the 1920 's. labor unions could account for this as they saw their membership fall from a high of 5 million in the 1920s to a mere 3.6 million by 1923(Rosenzweig 353). A combination of Supreme court decisions, Employer pressures and in many cases a lack of a strong leadership seen in previous individuals like Samuel Gompers contributed to this.Yet this trend surprisingly didn’t remain consistent as the great depression emerged around the 1930s.In fact they tripled there membership during the 1930s(Rosenzweig 429).They opened up, recruiting millions of women in their causes …show more content…

The "vague" policy allowed labor organizers to assert workers could make patriotic contributions by joining unions.Immediatley them impact could be seen as stated in Who build America,"By June 17, the day after Roosevelt signed the NIRA,80 percent of Ohio miners had signed union cars"(Rosenzweigh 430).Such a high burst in participation just displays how high of an impact government policies in encouraging union participation can have.The highly advertised act in the mining fields made these workers feel safe and empowered to join the re emerging labor movement.Yet it wasn 't enough the vagueness of the wording and the lack of enforcement mechanism permitted by the act lead Roosevelt to later implement the Wagner act. In order to encourage the growth of trade unions he passed this bills that did more than intended.As the book Who built America details,"The Wagner Act guaranteed workers the right to freely organize their own unions and to strike, boycott, and picket their employers(Rosenzweigh 454).This was exactly what all Middle and working class Americans needed to push them over.It had the stern language that the NIRA lacked and the backing of the National Labor Relation board to hear complaints.Because people thought there jobs were safer due to Roosevelt 's policies, they were more willing to join unions, leading to hike in

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