Running From the Union Label? Labor and Business Political Mobilization in the Golden Age

Abstract

This paper assesses labor's political effectiveness in the industrial Midwest at the peak of union strength during the 1950s—a time and place that should have been ripe for labor mobilization. Comparing labor and business mobilization and outcomes across key labor elections, I find that politicians and business groups were often successful in persuading industrial communities to vote against labor's interests while unions struggled to shed outsider and greedy special interest labels. To make sense of labor's mixed performance, I draw on social movement theory and the inter-related nature of union mobilization, countermovement organization, and the framing of labor issues. Labor struggled when facing a well-organized business countermovement, which effectively weaponized the union label against labor. Union success hinged in part on their ability to downplay union identity and to have other more respected community partners do much of the public-facing work, but only when facing a fractured opposition. The findings point to important vulnerabilities unions faced at their peak and suggest a more nuanced view of postwar labor relations. They also extend social movement research on framing by identifying the important role of countermovements and coalitions in shaping what movements can convey and what will resonate.