American labor movement

This volume discusses the American labor movement, with special emphasis on recent trends. It opens with a section on the 170-odd-year history of American labor's organizing efforts and struggle for recognition. The second section depicts labor's position today, after the merging of the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations into the first unified group ever to speak unchallenged for the vast majority of the nation's 18 million organized workers.

In the third section are discussed the problems posed by labor's activities and objectives in our economic and political society. Next the provisions of the National Labor Relations Act of 1947 (Taft-Hartley) and its application are discussed by labor, management, and government spokesmen.

The section on "right-to-work" laws, as they are called by their sponsors, offers a variety of opinions on this key controversy. The topic is discussed on one side as "compulsory unionism" and on the other side as "union security," or as "right-to-work" and "right-to-wreck" laws. The book concludes with a section on violence and corruption in unions and on their internal democracy, what is being done about these problems, and what it is suggested may or should be done.