One Big Union

Examples of One Big Union in the following topics:

• Progressives and the Working Class

  • The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) was founded in Chicago in 1905, at a convention of anarchist and socialist union members who were opposed to the policies of the American Federation of Labor (AFL).
  • Unlike the AFL, which was a group composed of separate unions for each different trade (craft unionism), the IWW supported the concept of industrial unionism, in which all workers in a given industry are organized in a single union regardless of each worker's particular trade.
  • They promoted the idea of "One Big Union" in the hopes that one large, centralized body would be better equipped to deal with similarly large capitalist enterprises.

• Credit Unions

  • Credit unions increase competition (big banks tend to be oligopolies, while credit unions are intrinsically smaller in scale, thus high in quantity)
  • Credit unions are smaller, and therefore more likely to go out of business
  • While there are many considerations to be made when deciding on a banking option, credit unions are uniquely positioned to offset the downsides of big banks through avoiding risk while focusing on local needs.
  • Big banks add advantage through scale (along with risk), providing more investment opportunities and global access to capital.
  • Assess the value of credit unions, particularly compared to big banks and an understanding of risk

• The Rise of Big Business

  • Laborers organized themselves into unions to negotiate with companies.
  • The companies, however, attempted to shut down labor unions.
  • One tactic was the strike.
  • Though the Sherman Act was intended to target trusts, the companies sued the union under it, claiming that unions obstructed interstate commerce.
  • Examine the rise of big business in the late nineteenth century

• The Decline of Union Power

  • While more than one-third of employed people belonged to unions in 1945, union membership fell to 24.1 percent of the U.S. work force in 1979 and to 13.9 percent in 1998.
  • Dues increases, continuing union contributions to political campaigns, and union members' diligent voter-turnout efforts kept unions' political power from ebbing as much as their membership.
  • Automation is a continuing challenge for union members.
  • The shift to service industry employment, where unions traditionally have been weaker, also has been a serious problem for labor unions.
  • As if these difficulties were not enough, years of negative publicity about corruption in the big Teamsters Union and other unions have hurt the labor movement.

• Labor Union Impacts on Equilibrium

  • The primary activity of the union is to bargain with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiate labor contracts.
  • In order to achieve these goals unions engage in collective bargaining: the process of negotiation between a company's management and a labor union.
  • However, the reality of unions is more complex.
  • As an organized body, unions are also active in the political realm.
  • One tool that unions may use to raise wages is to go on strike.

• War Aims and Strategy

  • The "Big Three" (Franklin D.
  • A separate protocol signed at the conference pledged the Big Three to recognize Iran's independence.
  • One of the critical outcomes was agreement on Operation Overlord (Battle of Normandy) and general war policy.
  • The Big Three met again major war conference in Yalta (sometimes called the Crimea Conference), held from February 4 to 11, 1945.
  • Citizens of the Soviet Union and of Yugoslavia were to be handed over to their respective countries, regardless of their consent.

• Yalta and the Postwar World

  • The Yalta Conference was led by the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union, represented by President Franklin D.
  • Stalin agreed that the Soviet Union would enter the Pacific War three months after the defeat of Germany.
  • Also, the "Big Three" agreed that all original governments would be restored to the invaded countries (with the exception of France, Romania, and Bulgaria; the Polish government-in-exile was also excluded by Stalin) and that all civilians would be repatriated.
  • Creation of a reparation council that would be located in the Soviet Union.
  • Citizens of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia were to be handed over to their respective countries, regardless of their consent.

• Modern Labor Organizations

  • Labor unions have lost power in the United States over the years and, today, union membership varies by sector.
  • Historically, the rapid growth of public employee unions since the 1960s has served to mask an even more dramatic decline in private-sector union membership.
  • Although most industrialized countries have seen a drop in unionization rates, the drop in union density (the unionized proportion of the working population) has been more significant in the United States than elsewhere.
  • One explanation for loss of public support is simply the lack of union power.
  • Unions no longer carry the "threat effect:" the power of unions to raise wages of non-union shops by virtue of the threat of unions to organize those shops.

• The Gastonia Strike of 1929

  • Upon hearing about the conditions in the Loray Mill, Fred Beal of the National Textile Workers Union (NTWU), a communist labor union, as well as a member of the Trade Union Unity League, began focusing his attention on the small town of Gastonia.
  • On Saturday, March 30, 1929, the union held its first public meeting in Gastonia.
  • The strikers demanded a 40-hour work week, a minimum $20 weekly wage, union recognition, and the abolition of the stretch-out system.
  • One female striker, Ella Mae Wiggins, was killed.
  • Some of her better known works are "A Mill Mother's Song," "Chief Aderholt," and "The Big Fat Boss and the Workers."

• Labor Interest Groups

  • The National Labor Union (NLU) was the first American federation of unions formed in 1866.
  • One example was the American Federation of Labor, a large umbrella group made up primarily of locals involved in craft unionism.
  • The CIO was built around an industrial unionism model.
  • The Pullman's union and the United Farm Workers unions are examples of unions that came together to advocate for the economic interests of African-American and latino workers.
  • While private union membership has declined, public unions are still quite strong.