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The Organized Labor Bureaucracy as a Base of Support for the Democratic Party

1962; Duke University School of Law; Volume: 27; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2307/1190546

1945-2322

Nicholas A. Masters,

Labor Movements and Unions

With the announcement of official top level labor support for the re-election of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1936, the Gomperian dictum of neutrality in politics received a mortal blow. Labor's neutrality, which had long been an equivocal tradition anyway, was laid to rest in I955, with the merger of the politically aggressive Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) with the less politically oriented American Federation of Labor (AFL). These and other much-publicized events, such as organized labor's role in the I948 Truman victory and the I958 congressional elections, have contributed to a widely-held popular belief that labor represents a monolithic force on the American political scene, capable of placing a massive vote at the doorstep of the Democratic Party. Yet recent scholarly studies demonstrate that, despite increasing political involvements of union leaders, particularly in campaigns, there are a substantial number of union members who vote contrary to the public endorsements of their leadership; who note with disapproval, as detracting from the vital business of contract and grievance negotiation, any display of political activity by union leaders; or who remain politically apathetic, leadership exhortation to the contrary notwithstanding. Moreover, within the union movement, a substantial number of union leaders still attempt to stay out of partisan election campaigns, and refuse to allow their unions to become closely identified with any political party or its candidates. The intention of this paper is to discuss, first, the generalization that union organizations and their members occupy varying positions on a continuum of political opinion and activity, and that as a result the AFL-CIO cannot guarantee a substantial bloc of votes for candidates in national campaigns. In the light of previous studies, this point does not merit detailed documentation and analysis. And second, the major focus of this discussion is on an analysis of organized labor, particularly the AFL-CIO nationally, as a base of support for Democratic candidates for presidential and congressional offices. Such analysis involves two questions: Why is labor sought as a base of support? What are the effects, positive and negative, of such support? I