Episode 8: Is There an Ending to the CIO?

Organize the Unorganized: The Rise of 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.