Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
Unions in the 1960s and 70s - Coggle Diagram
Unions in the 1960s and 70s
Improvement
.
Executive Order 10988 (1962): Gave federal employees collective bargaining rights, excluding the right to strike and wages, which expanded the scope of union influence.
Public Sector Growth: Unions grew dramatically among public sector workers (e.g., teachers, postal workers, police officers).
Postal Workers and Sanitation Workers:
Great Postal Strike, 1970: Workers won a 14% pay increase and collective bargaining rights on wages and working conditions, marking a key advancement for public sector unions.
Memphis Sanitation Strike, 1968: African American workers won collective bargaining rights and union recognition for municipal workers.
Political Operations: AFL-CIO became more sophisticated, and the political influence of unions grew under Democratic presidencies (JFK and LBJ).
Deterioration
Decline in Unionized Labor:
Union membership declined significantly: from 33% in 1950 to 27% by 1970, and further to 25% by 1975.
African Americans Excluded
African Americans continued to face exclusion from skilled trades, notably in industries like construction, which limited their ability to unionise and gain union benefits.
Deindustrialization:
Companies began outsourcing unionised jobs to non-unionised southern states, Mexico, and Asia.
Many manufacturing jobs were lost due to automation or foreign competition, leading to long-term economic decline in union-dominated cities (e.g., Youngstown, Ohio) due to factory shutdowns (e.g., Youngstown Sheet and Tube, 1977 – "Black Monday").
Companies began outsourcing unionised jobs to non-unionised southern states, Mexico, and Asia.
Signs of Concern
Public Sector Limitations:
Although public sector unions gained collective bargaining rights, they were still excluded from the right to strike (e.g., postal workers).
Political Pushback:
Despite gains, there was increasing pushback against union power, especially as economic challenges (like deindustrialization) put unions under strain.
Lack of Skilled Trade Representation
The exclusion of African Americans from skilled trades highlighted ongoing racial and economic inequalities, and the AFL-CIO struggled to fully address these issues.