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Organize the Unorganized: The Rise of the CIO

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10 episodes

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INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPTS BELOW! Click on "Show More" A podcast about the history, strategy, and significance of the Congress of Industrial Organizations from the Center for Work & Democracy at Arizona State University and Jacobin Magazine. All clip, song, and quote references, as well as links to individual interview transcripts, at soundcloud.com/organizetheunorganized. Interview with Jeremy Brecher: https://jacobin.com/2024/01/organize-the-unorganized-congress-of-industrial-organizations-labor-history-unions Interview with David Brody: https://jacobin.com/2024/07/cio-afl-industrial-unions-history/ Interview with Robert Cherny: https://jacobin.com/2024/01/west-coast-class-struggle-history Interview with Dorothy Sue Cobble: https://jacobin.com/2024/03/cio-labor-movement-afl-cobble Interview with Lizabeth Cohen: https://jacobin.com/2024/01/congress-of-industrial-organizations-history-worker-organizing-unity-great-depression Interview with Peter Cole: https://jacobin.com/2024/08/ilwu-racism-dockworkers-san-francisco Interview with Melvyn Dubofsky: https://jacobin.com/2023/12/cio-committee-industrial-organization-mass-production-workers-us-labor-movement-afl Interview with Steve Fraser: https://jacobin.com/2024/01/cio-history-working-class-organizing-new-deal Interview with Rick Halpern: https://jacobin.com/2024/06/packinghouse-workers-organizing-committee-upwa-cio-history/ Interview with Nelson Lichtenstein: https://jacobin.com/2024/09/cio-worker-organizing-labor-history Interview with Erik Loomis: https://jacobin.com/2024/03/cio-sit-down-strikes-roosevelt-communists Interview with Ruth Milkman: https://jacobin.com/2024/08/unions-afl-cio-democracy-leadership Interview with Daniel Nelson: https://jacobin.com/2024/01/akron-rubber-workers-union-sit-down-strike-cio Interview with Bryan Palmer: https://jacobin.com/2024/01/1934-minneapolis-truckers-strike-cio-left-organizing Interview with Lisa Phillips: https://jacobin.com/2024/04/cio-union-density-mccarthyism-racism Interview with Ahmed White: https://jacobin.com/2024/04/cio-little-steel-strike-swoc Interview with James Young: https://jacobin.com/2024/05/united-electrical-workers-ue-union-cio-communists

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12/30/2023

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Recent Episodes

March 12, 2024

Episode 9: Lessons

This final episode of Organize the Unorganized is devoted to key lessons of the CIO moment. All of the guests on this program were asked about this basic question, and we try to represent all of their answers on this episode. The negative lessons, points where guests were keen to note the differences between the 30s and the present moment, focused on the changed economic situation and the issue of labor law. The more positive lessons pertained to union democracy, overcoming divisions in the working class, mass organizing, raising expectations, and seizing the moment. Guests in order of appearance: Dorothy Sue Cobble, Professor Emerita of History and Labor Studies at Rutgers University; David Brody, Professor Emeritus of History at UC-Davis; Ruth Milkman, Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the CUNY Graduate Center; Ahmed White, Nicholas Rosenbaum Professor of Law at the University of Colorado-Boulder; Lizabeth Cohen, Howard Mumford Jones Professor of American Studies at Harvard University; Robert Cherny, Professor Emeritus of History at San Francisco State University; Jeremy Brecher, Labor Historian; Nelson Lichtenstein, Professor of History at UC-Santa Barbara; Bryan Palmer, Professor Emeritus of History at Trent University; William P. Jones, Professor of History at the University of Minnesota; Rick Halpern, Professor of American Studies at the University of Toronto; Peter Cole, Professor of History at Western Illinois University; Erik Loomis, Professor of History at the University of Rhode Island; Steve Fraser, Labor Historian Clips in order of appearance: “David Dubinsky speaks at the 25th anniversary celebration of his ILGWU presidency, Madison Square Garden, New York, 1957, Part 2,” David Dubinsky Audio-visual Recordings, Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation and Archives, Cornell University Library, https://rmc.library.cornell.edu/EAD/htmldocs/KCL05780-002av.html (37:32); “Walter Reuther and the UAW,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4n76yNizs8 (38:03); “A Conversation with Harry Bridges,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EFZOj7_1qI (39:31); John L. Lewis, “Industrial Democracy Speech, WEAF,” The John L. Lewis Papers, Wisconsin Historical Society (493A/39) (39:46) Songs in order of appearance: The Union Boys, “Hold the Fort,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fj4tNpjr9c4 (12:33); “On the Line,” “Tom Glazer Sings Favorite American Union Songs circa 1948,” United Packinghouse, Food, and Allied Workers Records, 1937-1968, Wisconsin Historical Society (Audio 375A/78), https://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi/f/findaid/findaid-idx?c=wiarchives;id=navbarbrowselink;cginame=findaid-idx;cc=wiarchives;view=reslist;subview=standard;didno=uw-whs-mss00118;focusrgn=C02;byte=412854728 (19:07); “We Shall Not Be Moved,” The Original Talking Union and Other Unions Songs with the Almanac Singers with Pete Seeger and Chorus, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3cJ7GVoOdA (27:56); Tracy Newman, “It Could Be a Wonderful World,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-yIs5GICs8 (42:33) Theme music by Drake Tyler.

March 5, 2024

Episode 8: Is There an Ending to the CIO?

This penultimate episode of Organize the Unorganized concludes the story of the CIO. We cover first the communist purge in the late 1940s, as well as Operation Dixie, the failed campaign to organize the south. We then get to merger with the AFL in 1955, and the afterlife of the CIO in the Industrial Union Department and its contributions to the Civil Rights Movement. Guests in order of appearance: Lizabeth Cohen, Howard Mumford Jones Professor of American Studies at Harvard University; James Young, Professor Emeritus of History at Edinboro University; Melvyn Dubofsky, Professor Emeritus of History and Sociology at Binghamton University; Erik Loomis, Professor of History at the University of Rhode Island; David Brody, Professor Emeritus of History at UC-Davis; Jeremy Brecher, Labor Historian; William P. Jones, Professor of History at the University of Minnesota; Nelson Lichtenstein, Professor of History at UC-Santa Barbara; Lisa Phillips, Associate Professor of History at Indiana State University; Steve Fraser, Labor Historian; Ruth Milkman, Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the CUNY Graduate Center; Dorothy Sue Cobble, Professor Emerita of History and Labor Studies at Rutgers University Clips in order of appearance: “Bill Strength Congress of Industrial Organizations Program,” Part 11, “Congress of Industrial Organizations and Americanism” (1524A/28), in “Textile Workers Union of America Records, 1915-1994,” Wisconsin Historical Society, https://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi/f/findaid/findaid-idx?c=wiarchives;view=reslist;subview=standard;didno=uw-whs-us00129a (0:00); “James Matles - 1973, District 10 meeting, Lake Arrowhead, CA,” UE History, https://soundcloud.com/user-141302221/james-matles-1973-district-10-meeting-lake-arrowhead-ca (9:41); “Congress of Industrial Organizations convention debate on the expulsion of the communists, circa 4 November 1949” (1524A/91&92), in “Textile Workers Union of America Records, 1915-1994,” Wisconsin Historical Society, https://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi/f/findaid/findaid-idx?c=wiarchives;view=reslist;subview=standard;didno=uw-whs-us00129a (19:40, 20:14, 21:49, 22:33, 23:53); “Martin Luther King, AFL-CIO Convention 4 Dec 11, 1961,” AFL-CIO archive at the University of Maryland (35:30); “John F. Kennedy’s remarks to a labor group, 24 September, 1963” (375A/41), in “United Packinghouse, Food, and Allied Workers Records, 1937-1968,” Wisconsin Historical Society, https://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi/f/findaid/findaid-idx?c=wiarchives;id=navbarbrowselink;cginame=findaid-idx;cc=wiarchives;view=reslist;subview=standard;didno=uw-whs-mss00118;focusrgn=C02;byte=412854728 (39:50); “UAW Audiovisual Collection: 1955 Documentary on the CIO,” Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University (46:40) Theme music by Drake Tyler.

February 26, 2024

Episode 7: War

The early period of the CIO could be said to have ended with the Little Steel strike in 1937, when the limits of the New Deal order were dramatically illustrated in the brutal repression and failure of the strike. But the CIO continued to grow through the 40s, and it was the war escalation that provided the context for it to do so. This episode will be devoted to the CIO's role in and relation to the war effort, and what it meant for this labor upsurge. Guests in order of appearance: Melvyn Dubofsky, Professor Emeritus of History and Sociology at Binghamton University; Nelson Lichtenstein, Professor of History at UC-Santa Barbara; Rick Halpern, Professor of American Studies at the University of Toronto; Erik Loomis, Professor of History at the University of Rhode Island; Ruth Milkman, Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the CUNY Graduate Center; Dorothy Sue Cobble, Professor Emerita of History and Labor Studies at Rutgers University; Steve Fraser, Labor Historian; James Young, Professor Emeritus of History at Edinboro University; Daniel Nelson, Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Akron; Bryan Palmer, Professor Emeritus of History at Trent University Clips in order of appearance: “Bill Strength Congress of Industrial Organizations Program,” Part 12 - “The People Speak” (1524A/28), in “Textile Workers Union of America Records, 1915-1994,” Wisconsin Historical Society, https://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi/f/findaid/findaid-idx?c=wiarchives;view=reslist;subview=standard;didno=uw-whs-us00129a (12:05); “US Steel Strike Ends,” British Movietone, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Rv4kGUc53c (29:08) Quotes in order of appearance: Art Preis, Labor’s Giant Step (New York: Pathfinder, 2022), pp. 155-156 (16:35); Zieger, The CIO: 195-1955 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995), pp. 212-213 (29:44) Songs in order of appearance: The Union Boys, “UAW-CIO,” Songs for Victory: Music for Political Action, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7X48V9OCUkU (15:42); The Almanac Singers, “Boomtown Bill,” Keep That Oil A Rollin’, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xLQjGUi_c8 (19:58); Josh White, “We’ve Got a Plan,” Power to the People!: Protest Songs, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zwh7y1l0L5g (26: 14) Theme music by Drake Tyler. Quote music is Martin Tallstrom’s cover of “Freight Train,” used here with permission: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9LEUMgBkX8.

10 total episodes available

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What is Organize the Unorganized: The Rise of the CIO?: INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPTS BELOW! Click on "Show More"

A podcast about the history, strategy, and significance of the Congress of Industrial Organizations from the Center for Work & Democracy at Arizona State University and Jacobin Magazine. All clip, song, and quote references, as well as links to individual interview transcripts, at soundcloud.com/organizetheunorganized.

Interview with Jeremy Brecher: https://jacobin.com/2024/01/organize-the-unorganized-congress-of-industrial-organizations-labor-history-unions

Interview with David Brody: https://jacobin.com/2024/07/cio-afl-industrial-unions-history/

Interview with Robert Cherny: https://jacobin.com/2024/01/west-coast-class-struggle-history

Interview with Dorothy Sue Cobble: https://jacobin.com/2024/03/cio-labor-movement-afl-cobble

Interview with Lizabeth Cohen: https://jacobin.com/2024/01/congress-of-industrial-organizations-history-worker-organizing-unity-great-depression

Interview with Peter Cole: https://jacobin.com/2024/08/ilwu-racism-dockworkers-san-francisco

Interview with Melvyn Dubofsky: https://jacobin.com/2023/12/cio-committee-industrial-organization-mass-production-workers-us-labor-movement-afl

Interview with Steve Fraser: https://jacobin.com/2024/01/cio-history-working-class-organizing-new-deal

Interview with Rick Halpern: https://jacobin.com/2024/06/packinghouse-workers-organizing-committee-upwa-cio-history/

Interview with Nelson Lichtenstein: https://jacobin.com/2024/09/cio-worker-organizing-labor-history

Interview with Erik Loomis: https://jacobin.com/2024/03/cio-sit-down-strikes-roosevelt-communists

Interview with Ruth Milkman: https://jacobin.com/2024/08/unions-afl-cio-democracy-leadership

Interview with Daniel Nelson: https://jacobin.com/2024/01/akron-rubber-workers-union-sit-down-strike-cio

Interview with Bryan Palmer: https://jacobin.com/2024/01/1934-minneapolis-truckers-strike-cio-left-organizing

Interview with Lisa Phillips: https://jacobin.com/2024/04/cio-union-density-mccarthyism-racism

Interview with Ahmed White: https://jacobin.com/2024/04/cio-little-steel-strike-swoc

Interview with James Young: https://jacobin.com/2024/05/united-electrical-workers-ue-union-cio-communists
How often does this podcast release new episodes?: This podcast updates inactive.
Where can I listen to this podcast?: This podcast is available on 6 platforms including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and more. You can also use the RSS feed directly.
Does this podcast accept guests?: Information about guest appearances is not available.

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