Jerry Monaco wrote: After WW II the Foremen at GM struck to have their union recognized. Walter Reuther faced the decision of whether to ask the locals not to cross the foremen's picket lines. There was no love lost between foremen and line workers, but in general Reuther had a Scandinavian view of unions, and believed that all employees should have their own organizations to protect them. The National Labor Relations Board ruled against the foremen, telling them that they had no legal rights in this area. No matter what the legal rights here, if Reuther had take a stand it wouldn't have matter anyway. GM would have had to negotiate. It is unfortunate that this opportunity faded away.
My own view has been for a long time that this event was _the_ turning point in the fortunes of 'the left' since WW2. But this wording of it is, I think, too kind to Reuther. After all, Reuther had become president of the UAW through a really vicious red-baiting campaign against the former president, R.J. Thomas. Whether Reuther "faced a decision" (i.e., really "wrestled with dilemma") or merely gratefully latched on to the excuse of NLRB rules is probably debatable. But the latter is, I think, more compatible with his career as a whole. (I can't remember what journal this is in, but a Wayne State University professor printed a short note to the effect that in a bundle of unsorted UAW material at Wayne he had discovered that at one point, I think 1936, Reuther was a formal member of three different parties: The SP, the DP, and the CP. He was one of the champion trimmers of all time.
> It will either take a massive movement to change laws or a massive
> movement to ignore the laws in order to change this situation.
The latter, because only through the latter would the former become a possibility. (And this suggests something re health care. A Single Payer proposal will be seriously considered in Congress only after 100s of thousands of patients launch sitdown 'strikes' in hospitals and clinics.)
This points to one of the reasons I've stopped even glancing at Wojtek's posts. He (a) denounces the process by which P could be achieved (popular mobilization) and (b) denounces every one in sight for not supporting P. Pure egotism. Krupskaya in her memoirs remarks that dealing with Trotsky was like dealing with the Minister Plenipotentiary of a soverign state. Wojtek makes Trotsky seem a St. Francis in comparison.
Carrol
The following URL will take you to a UAW website and its "Timeline" of UAW history. Note how it barely acknowledges the existence of R.J. Thomas, while Reuther's name enters from the beginning. And no link to any account of Thomas.
http://www.reuther.wayne.edu/ward/uaw-timeline.htm