Labor’s Giant Step: The Rise of the CIO

The rise of the CIO is the most significant development in American working-class history yet. While craft-unionism certainly played a positive role in the early days of the class struggle, it became too narrow for organizing against the huge monopoly trusts that had sprawling supply chains and enormous political power in the early 20th century. An entirely new method was needed. Thus, the birth of industrial unionism swept the country by storm, organizing all workers in an entire industry across every part of the supply chain.

This movement ushered in innovative tactics like “rolling pickets” and “sit-down” strikes, which brought production to a total standstill. In particular, sit-down strikes put front-and-center the question of private property, and “who really runs the workplace?” This period offers many rich lessons for communists today. Once again, economic storm clouds are gathering, resembling the period of the late 1920s. Every committed revolutionary must study this period in depth to prepare for the coming wave of radicalization and class struggle, because the most significant days of the American working-class are still to come.

This discussion will be introduced by David Johnson, a leading member of the RCA in New York City.

Reading list:

Books

• Labor’s Giant Step – Art Preis
• The Fight for a Mass Workers’ Party – Tom Trottier
• How to Win Strikes – RCA

Articles

• Communists and the Trade Unions – RCA
• USA: the role of the Trotskyists in the 1934 Minneapolis Teamsters’ Strike – Marco La Grotta 
• Class Struggle Unionism: Reviving the Labor Movement – Steve Iverson
• Class Struggle and the New Deal – Eric Goodman
• What we can Learn From the Last Time America had 100,000 Communists – Tom Trottier