Review: The Labor Wars: From the Molly Maguires to the Sit Downs

The Labor Wars: From the Molly Maguires to the Sit Downs by Sidney Lens
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Molly Maguires may have been an Irish 19th-century secret society known for their activism among Irish-American and Irish immigrant coal miners in Pennsylvania. Or maybe they were the nonexistent basis for a folk panic. Either way they are a basis for the history of the roots of militant labor movements in America, sort of like rooting a story of Democracy on semi-legends. Through railroads and infection by communism to mass production, this tellings ends with the successful sitdowns largely in Michigan automotive plants, particularly GM. The author argues that with this transition from fighting in the streets to keep "blacklegs" (scabs) out to making an occupy movement of the strike, fininally unionism became a force to be reckoned with. From then, the "wars" disappeared as the National Guard was no longer called and the unions became established--part of the establishment. This 1974 work ponders an uncertain future by reviewing the Nixon era:

In the second half of 1971 President Richard M. Nixon took two steps which represented back-handed admissions that Pax Americana on the international scene and the synthetic prosperity at home might be in serious trouble. ...

The New Economic Policy, proclaimed at approximately the same time as the announcements regarding China, reflected an international trade and money crisis, and probably forecast the end of the international Pax Americana. ...

Against this background President Nixon elaborated a much tighter control of business and labor than Washington had exercised since the Second World War. It was not, as many believed, a carbon copy of what happened during World War II. It began, first of all, with a freeze of all wages and almost all prices. For ninety days all raises were prohibited, even those provided for in previously negotiated union contracts, the first time any practice of this sort has ever occurred. In effect, collective bargaining agreements were abrogated. And though the period of the freeze was short, it was a major extension of presidential power. Future Presidents doubtless will use it as a precedent for executive reversal of labor-management relations on a broader front.

Debates over the "Nixon Shock" have persisted to the present day, with economists and politicians across the political spectrum trying to make sense of the Nixon Shock and its impact on monetary policy in the light of the financial crisis of 2007–2008.

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