The Congress of Industrial Organizations

History of the CIO:

The Minutes of the Executive Board of the CIO provide an unusually clear lens through which to view

critical issues in the public life of the United States in the period 1935 to 1955. These years were

characterized by mass organizing, nationwide strikes, and bitter ideological and partisan political conflict that

had a far-reaching impact on the nation as a whole. An assertive labor movement claimed front-page

attention as it intruded into every area of public life.

 

The CIO was at the center of labor activism. It played a key role in the expansion of collective bargaining

and the establishment of basic entitlements such as health insurance, pensions, and grievance machinery. It

exerted a powerful working-class voice in the great debates over taxation, social welfare, and economic

policy of the New Deal-World War II era. During this same period, pioneering CIO political initiatives

helped forge the New Deal coalition that dominated American politics for forty years. Unprecedented

recruitment of African American workers by the CIO and its alliances with civil rights organizations made

organized labor a major factor in the revolution in race relations launched in this era.

 

The ideological conflicts that raged in the CIO, involving as they did the role of communism in both the

world arena and in domestic affairs, were at the center of national politics for more than a decade. The

industrial mobilization of American workers, millions of whom were CIO members, during World War II

raised enduring questions about the character of state power in the modern world. And no aspect of

American life was more significant in postwar anticommunism, international and domestic, than the industrial

unions of the CIO.

 

The Minutes' verbatim record of the lengthy, free-wheeling discussions of CIO leaders provides a vivid

firsthand record of the deliberations of some of the outstanding figures in American labor history. The

Board, which consisted of the leader of each of the thirty or so unions in the federation as well as

top-ranking officers of the CIO itself, met at least three times each year and often as many as six. The

articulate and ambitious leaders of the industrial union movement embraced a variety of progressive

perspectives. Social Catholics, reformist Protestants, secular liberals, Communists, social democrats, and

Trotskyists debated and sought to put into action diverse agendas for labor.

 

Early meetings of CIO leaders reflect the crusading spirit that characterized the creation of modern industrial

unionism. Records of these gatherings reveal the inner workings of the CIO's bold organizing campaigns of

the mid-1930s. They document the epic struggle of Akron's rubber workers, the dramatic Flint sit-down

strike of 1936-37, the violent response to efforts to organize a half-million steelworkers, and the

unprecedented union involvement in the 1936 election.

 

At early meetings of the Board, CIO founder John L. Lewis articulated far-reaching ambitions for the new

industrial union movement. Lewis's reports on his complex and shifting relations with Franklin D. Roosevelt

vividly reveal the political dimensions of the industrial union crusade. Lewis's successor, Philip Murray,

combined an encyclopedic knowledge of economic conditions with an immersion in Roman Catholic social

ideology. Sidney Hillman of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers brought with him the legacy of his vast

experience in the disputatious New York immigrant socialist environment as well as a shrewd understanding

of the new politics of the Roosevelt era. Harry Bridges, the fiery head of the influential West Coast

Longshoremen's Union, personified the crosscurrents of the vigorous left-wing political culture that

characterized the dockyards milieu of California. Walter Reuther and other leaders in the increasingly

influential United Automobile Workers (UAW) advanced far-reaching progressive political and ideological

programs.

 

Of course, much of the material in the Minutes of the Executive Board is of special interest to students of the

labor movement per se. The split between the AFL and the CIO (and twenty years later, the merger of the

two organizations) occupied much of the attention of CIO leaders. These Minutes also contain detailed

discussions of collective bargaining goals and strategies, the great strike waves of 1935-37, 1940-41,

1944, and 1945-46, inter-union relations, organizing efforts such as the postwar Operation Dixie, and

political initiatives. Internal conflicts often loomed large. The Minutes' extensive transcripts document John

L. Lewis's bitter break with his erstwhile colleagues in the period 1940-42. The ongoing conflict between

pro-Soviet and anti-Communist unionists, which culminated in the "trials" that led to the ouster of eleven

unions from the CIO in 1950, brought even fiercer conflict and more extensive debate.

 

In the CIO's later years, meetings of its Executive Committee, which consisted of presidents of the largest

unions and the federation's central officers, reflect the changing political and economic environment of the

1950s. Board minutes chronicle their efforts to come to grips with perplexing postwar problems of antiunion

legislation, economic growth, unemployment, civil rights, and foreign policy. CIO leaders were critical

supporters of the government's anti-Communist foreign policies and pioneers in modern political action

initiatives. Extensive debates over merger with the AFL reflect competing visions of labor's future.

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