What Happened to Unions? How Can We Reunionize?

In today's episode, I am talking about the participation of Black people in unions. I dive into the importance of the CIO (Congressional Industrial Organizations) into being the first interracial union. CIO's efforts also branched into the policies developed into the civil rights episode. For the pop culture section, I talk about the lack of unions in the music industry. Due to the segregation by race and genre by the American Federation of Musicians, this has led to musicians and artists having little to know power over their profits and artistic output. 

Links to YouTube videos on how to start a union:  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tok00IDVTz4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHOGRhBkWOE

References:

Judt, D. (2022). The Tragic Pragmatism of the Wagner Act. American Journal of Legal History. https://doi.org/10.1093/ajlh/njac019

Herrick, E. M. (1946). The National Labor Relations Act. Annals of The American Academy of Political and Social Science. https://doi.org/10.1177/000271624624800113

Zeitlin, M., & Weyher, L. F. (2001). “Black and White, Unite and Fight”: Interracial Working‐Class Solidarity and Racial Employment Equality1. American Journal of Sociology. https://doi.org/10.1086/324682

Mason, L. R. (1945). The CIO and the Negro in the South. Journal of Negro Education. https://doi.org/10.2307/2966026

Forbath, W. E. (2000). Civil Rights and Economic Citizenship: Notes on the Past and Future of the Civil Rights and Labor Movements. University of Pennsylvania Journal of Business Law.

Anderson, B. E. (1975). Full Employment and Economic Equality. Annals of The American Academy of Political and Social Science. https://doi.org/10.1177/000271627541800113

Lichtenstein, A. (2002). The CIO in Black and White. Radical History Review. https://doi.org/10.1215/01636545-2002-83-203

Fones-Wolf, E. (1996). Labor and Social Welfare: The CIO’s Community Services Program, 1941-1956. Social Service Review. https://doi.org/10.1086/604217

Whann, H. D. (2020). Roosevelt, Randolph, and Dubinsky: Minorities & American Labor in the Twentieth Century.

Goldfield, M. (1993). Race and the CIO: The Possibilities for Racial Egalitarianism During the 1930s and 1940s. International Labor and Working-Class History. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0147547900012187

Schmitt, J., & Zipperer, B. (2007). The Decline in African-American Representation in Unions and Manufacturing, 1979-2006. CEPR Reports and Issue Briefs.

Cook, A., & Glass, C. (2013). Glass Cliffs and Organizational Saviors: Barriers to Minority Leadership in Work Organizations? Social Problems. https://doi.org/10.1525/SP.2013.60.2.168

Lazonick, W., Moss, P., & Weitz, J. (2020). How the Disappearance of Unionized Jobs Obliterated an Emergent Black Middle Class. Social Science Research Network. https://doi.org/10.36687/INETWP125

Miller, L. E. (2024a). The Origins of the American Federation of Musicians and Its Place in the History of Organized Labor. https://doi.org/10.5622/illinois/9780252045561.003.0002

Peterson, M. (2013). Sound Work: Music as Labor and the 1940s Recording Bans of the American Federation of Musicians. Anthropological Quarterly. https://doi.org/10.1353/ANQ.2013.0040

Pippen, J. (2015). Tell Tchaikovsky the News: Rock “n” Roll, the Labor Question, and the Musicians’ Union, 1942–1968 by Michael James Roberts (review). Notes. https://doi.org/10.1353/NOT.2015.0152

Weissman, D. (2019). The Viability of the American Federation of Musicians in the 21st Century. https://doi.org/10.25101/19.17

Frey, B. S. (2019). The Artists’ Labour Market