Episode 13 of Fragile Juggernaut surveys the impasse of the Second New Deal with the historian Ahmed White, when the newfound power of working-class organization in mass production confronted the counterattack of property and established social hierarchy.
During 1937, the “Little Steel” Strike, the “Roosevelt Recession,” and the political dilemmas of union power in the two-party system challenged the growth of the CIO and began to change its character. In prior chronological episodes, the movement of mass worker organizing has gone from strength to strength, culminating in the effervescence of sitdown strikes amongst very different kinds of workers and the landslide political victories of 1936.
But within the year, capital responds with a strike of its own–producing the Roosevelt recession–which leads state agents to turn toward repression of the labor movement rather than conciliation, FDR to reshuffle the basis of his coalition, and workers to find themselves without the leverage that they had possessed a few months earlier. The CIO responds to these new circumstances with new strategies. Some redouble their commitments to FDR’s coalition, while others begin seeking autonomy from its confines. The left, however, vacillates, becoming the prime victim to this new moment in the history of the CIO—unable to cohere or politically articulate a new wave of wildcat strikes that take off.
Featured music: “Ballad of Harry Bridges” by the Almanac Singers; “CIO song” by Aunt Molly Jackson; “No More Mourning” by John L. Handcox; “Alabama Trio Mill Blues” by Ralph Willis.
Archival audio credits: labor organizer Boris Ross from the "Documenting Social History: Chicago's Elderly Speak"; interview with Chicago activist Mollie West; Gaumont British Newsreel on Little Steel Strike; organizer and Congressman John Brenard.
Fragile Juggernaut is a Haymarket Originals podcast exploring the history, politics, and strategic lessons of the Congress of Industrial Organizations and the rank and file insurgency that produced it. Support Fragile Juggernaut on Patreon and receive our exclusive bimonthly newsletter, full of additional insights, reading recommendations, and archival materials we’ve amassed along the way.
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What does it *feel like* to build worker power? Season two of Haymarket Originals is bringing you inside one of the most dynamic and inspiring organizing drives in the labor movement today. Heat The Ground Up is an oral history of Starbucks Workers United, voiced by the baristas who built it.
Welcome to Heat the Ground Up, an oral history of Starbucks Workers United. Together, we’ll follow one of the most important labor fights in a generation through the voices and perspectives of the workers who organized it from the ground up. In this first episode, we’re joined by a handful of labor experts who will walk us through the significance of this story and some of the challenges workers were up against, setting the stage for the larger narrative.
This podcast is a Haymarket Originals production. Visit haymarketbooks.org to find indispensable radical books, podcasts, virtual events, and other political education resources, including Class Struggle Unionism, which is 20% Off online. Please also consider joining the Haymarket book club. It’s one of the best ways to support Haymarket, and help fund projects like this one.
Our podcast host is Clarissa Redwine. You can find more of her work at strike.kitchen. This entire oral history is released under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 4.0 International License. The music was composed by Michael T. Simonelli over at the podcast production company Charts and Leisure.
Welcome to Heat the Ground Up, an oral history of Starbucks Workers United. Together, we’ll follow one of the most important labor fights in a generation through the voices and perspectives of the workers who organized it from the ground up. In this second episode, we’ll dive into the issues that fueled organizing and the salting operation that gave workers at Elmwood in Buffalo a path to unionization.
This podcast is a Haymarket Originals production. Visit haymarketbooks.org to find indispensable radical books, podcasts, virtual events, and other political education resources, including Unite and Win. Subscribe and listen to the Unite and Win companion podcast here.
Please also consider joining the Haymarket book club. It’s one of the best ways to support Haymarket, and help fund projects like this one.
Our podcast host is Clarissa Redwine. You can find more of her work at strike.kitchen. This entire oral history is released under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 4.0 International License. The music was composed by Michael T. Simonelli over at the podcast production company Charts and Leisure.
Welcome to Heat the Ground Up, an oral history of Starbucks Workers United. In this episode, baristas take the union public in Buffalo, NY and we get an inside look at management’s anti-union campaign. Over the course of the series, we’ll follow one of the most important labor fights in a generation through the voices and perspectives of the workers who organized it from the ground up.
This podcast is a Haymarket Originals production. Visit haymarketbooks.org to find indispensable radical books, podcasts, virtual events, and other political education resources, including Set the Earth on Fire, which is 20% Off online. Please also consider joining the Haymarket book club. It’s one of the best ways to support Haymarket, and help fund projects like this one.
Our podcast host is Clarissa Redwine. You can find more of her work at strike.kitchen. This entire oral history is released under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 4.0 International License. The music was composed by Michael T. Simonelli over at the podcast production company Charts and Leisure.
Welcome to Heat the Ground Up, an oral history of Starbucks Workers United. In this episode, baristas in Buffalo, NY weather the final blows of management’s anti-union campaign and prepare for an election. Over the course of the series, we’ll follow one of the most important labor fights in a generation through the voices and perspectives of the workers who organized it from the ground up.
This podcast is a Haymarket Originals production. Visit haymarketbooks.org to find indispensable radical books, podcasts, virtual events, and other political education resources, including Detroit: I Do Mind Dying, which is 20% Off online. Please also consider joining the Haymarket book club. It’s one of the best ways to support Haymarket, and help fund projects like this one.
Our podcast host is Clarissa Redwine. You can find more of her work at strike.kitchen. This entire oral history is released under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 4.0 International License. The music was composed by Michael T. Simonelli over at the podcast production company Charts and Leisure.
Welcome to Heat the Ground Up, an oral history of Starbucks Workers United. In this episode, we get an inside look at the first Starbucks Workers United vote count and see the union take off across the country. Over the course of the series, we’ll follow one of the most important labor fights in a generation through the voices and perspectives of the workers who organized it from the ground up.
This podcast is a Haymarket Originals production. Visit haymarketbooks.org to find indispensable radical books, podcasts, virtual events, and other political education resources, including Class War, USA, which is 20% Off online. Please also consider joining the Haymarket book club. It’s one of the best ways to support Haymarket, and help fund projects like this one.
Our podcast host is Clarissa Redwine. You can find more of her work at strike.kitchen. This entire oral history is released under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 4.0 International License. The music was composed by Michael T. Simonelli over at the podcast production company Charts and Leisure.