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i'm elizabeth howell, a professor in the department of history. i'm here as guest lecture today in labor history. i'd like to welcome to my world and to talk a little bit about 1970s in many ways, the 1970s is our probably the most contested historical turf right now. as we talked about before, historians their minds, they find new evidence they find new arguments and new takes on the decades they study and the 1970s

is really no different. i think originally the culture we tend to think of them as of the rebellion light decade in which would focus disco and focus the conservative backlash. but in fact they're one of the most important decades for the american working class and in labor htory. so today, title the times they are changing apologies to bob dylan is really aut how this decade was a of fundamental in the workplace in the workforce and in work organizations. it also was a change in the context in which all of those three things operated. so focusing on worker militancy, the diversity of the working class and the emerging service economy. we're going to talk about this

long 1970s, starting about 1967 or 1968. and through the early eighties. we're going to talk about that decade, the changes that the working class or classes experience likebegin by noting s fraser, who at the time said that there seemed to be a one sided class war being fought against the working class. and when he's talking about that, he's insweeping economic d political changes that seem to livelihood of its members and of workers in general. let's talk just a few of those ■changes. some of the most important

trends in employment labor had to do with the sort of phenomenal growth of the labor in the 1960s. some of those actually have to do with a slight growth in immigration, but it also had to do with the fact that more women and younger men and women were joining labor force. ironically, this occurs at the same time in which you saw decline in manufacturing productivity gains through automation and latex, tended to drive down for labor in but other notably the government sector. but also retail clerical in the information sector in general were expanding. so unionization over the course of this decade drops from. 1962 and which the proportion of the labor force was unionized was. 3.4%.

to 1973. and which had dropped to 28.5%. and there were further declines over the rest of the decade. in 1968, the minimum reached peak purchasing and there really was no increase in the purchasing power of the minimum wage. post 2020. rikes between 1966 and 1973. and then further on in the 1970s really increased dramatically and the labore that were behind many of these strikes really fueled that labor action. nonunion, private sector employment as a result of all these things begins to increas , government sectors, experience great growth in unionized employment employment.

i mean key to this and it's something we don't think very information economy. in this slide there is a lot of very about the growth in artist and teachers. but i think what's important is to remember the ecomy at the time is and expanding and stuff like education and culture areas of information and also the slow growth of computerization, which begins already by the 1970s. all of this is important because the information sector prior to this is actually very organized, with a few exceptions, like the newspaper and actors. but the other piece this is, is

that the areas where companies are moving and expanding, developing businesses are areas that involve training people, educating people, finding information, researching information, also interpreting analyzing and distributing, communicating information, which means that the sector becomes important by the 1960s. and as we can tell from the past year, has basically become very dominant force, not just in the economy, but in labor movement. parallel to this, an increase in public sector. now, what do we mean. but we basically are about the area in governments, local, county or federal governments are employing people to do tasks, essential services is for

taxpayers. and the growth of that sector. that has a lot do with the growth of new programs like social security and eventually insurance by our period, but also even such things as the growth in the department of motor vehicles means that more and more people are going to be hired by the government. and at the beginning of the decade, despite the fact that like ijn 19, almost 12 million workers in the public sector, there was actually a prohibition against their collectively bargaining going on strike. and while this changed over the course of the sixties and seventies, the tension between being employed by government and having the same rights as private workers becomes an essential part of the politics and labor activism of the

decade. those new sectors also employ people who are new workers, women's labor force, participation in this that has the most dramatic, but also african-american in the labor force, also increased their numbers, especially in the new sectors. ation from asia latin america and africa will change the composition, the labor force. and this is, in fact, by the immigration reform. in 1965. so that more than 20 million new immigrant workers will enter the labor force. it's also affected by the growth of undocumented workers into, force in the course of the decade in, terms of women's labor force, participation. we have to go back to the 1950s

is to look at the contrast here. in the 1930s, for■ instance,ó[ou begin to see a blip in very employment. but women still a fairly minor part of the labor force, maybe 25 to 30%. and women have very irregular and oftentimes interrupted work histories. but by the 1950s, women's perception changes dramatically and then changes. so both in the sort of number of women, the labor force, but also the character of that while there's a growth, women's part time employment, it's also paired with a growth in women's full time employment. while there's a growth in total being employed, marriedom very t of the female labor force. so to women with children a fact that actually has further by

making the child sector also a new growth area in the work and take on lifelong work patterns for careers and they much more politically active because work participation tends to track very closely with political participation. the broad political of all of this is that there's a tremendous change in the way that people think about government and the that government acts toward, individuals andthroughout the ce 1960s and 1970s. there was a broadening of worker rights, especially in the area public employee rights. in addition, there are also laws in federal government. the change labor force, participation in, its

consequences like increasing the emphasis on quality within the workplace, both the quality of opportunity, but also a quality of compensation. so in 1963, for instance, we have the growth of feminism through various organizations, and it basically rolls into the equal pay act of 1963, in 1964, the civil rights not only guarantees certain rights in terms of nondiscrimination and promotion and compensation. our title seven, buts regard plus the race for sex. it emphasizes equal pay. it emphasizes equal opportunity and hiring. it emphasizes the rights workers to seek promotion on equal

important just for the labor force, but for how workplaces are organized, how workerst, and eventually how unions can use such legislation to support workers and to use those to it. essence, fight for equality within the workplace. the voting rights act of 1965. well, it seems to be not directly it is directly connected because the political representation of workers across race is so important for who is elected to government and how implement legislation. there are the decade, the 67 days and into the eighties cases about legaldicial process, but e implementation of these key worker rights bills.

the result of all of this is in union in the public■9 sector. in 1955, for example, public sector unions had about 4000 members in total. by the 1970s, membership had risen over tenfold to over 4 million workers who belong. public employee unions. some good examples of this are some of the fastest growing in the period after me or the american federation of state, county and municipal employees after. if themeteachers and the nationl education association all grew dramatically in terms of their membership and the ap, nea and seiu, that is the service employees international union wind up accounting a good proportion of organized labor, especially with public sector.

this organization led to labor action and workers being involved in trying to or demand better working conditions and better compensation. in the period between. 68 and 1977, for example, there over 5000 strikes per year with over two and a half million year. more than 3 million were on strike in 1970 and 1971. an strikes are not just union led, but are often wildcat actions that are pursued by who are trying to push and, greater action. some of the rank and file rebels as they were known, included within the united mine workers, an organization called the for

democracy and a teamsters. teamsters for auto. several groups, including a direction's the dodge revolutionary unionague of revoy black workers, and within the united union steelworkers. but they're all of these organized nations pushed these unions to capitalize on this new andew rank and file militancy against the conditions of the 1970s workplace. and that's surge in labor activism. doesn't start to taper off until 1981 with pat koch strike, which would signal an end to this wave of labor insurgency. i want to talk just briefly before iet into the next topic

about what the conditions that these workers and unions are about now when it comes to. there's a whole package of things thatappen in the decade in 1960. that means that workers within, any school district, whether they're teachers or public. buildings, service employees or people who work the cafeteria line, are looking at schools that have greater demands on them. the wave of baby boomers that goes through that sort of expand the population of schools but also school districts it's very tight. control over the public budget in addition that even as early as the 1960s and this continues to be true today been the rioration of the public schools in terms building

facilities. so today we maybe talking about lead pipes and leading to water. but even in the 1960s and 1970s, building that had been put into place some times temporary buildings were erected outside of the 1920s and 1930s. high schools were literally falling apart. and by the 1970s and 1980s, these physical hazards are on the radar. the teachers unions and other public employee unions in. addition to all of that, there is anlence in schools and and as teachers, workers, secretaries, new ofces are all responding to an environment in which there are greater tensions and greater violence violence. an unwillingness on the part school boards to do anything but

the most punitive actions toward individual goals. oftentimes are african-american or latino due to expel or suspendsystemically with the caf violence in the schools so that these issues become sort front and center for the for the teachers unions of the 1970s. but if we go to something more in line with traditional labor which is manufacturing in the decade what you would have seen the course of the 1950s and seva ramping up of occupation tional hazards in factories. chemical hazards is and recalls are introduced processes, but also because there is though within thoseressure to continue away up production to the speed

of the production line and production quotas workers. the rate of accidents is just escalating. all of this combined with the economic of the time and this sense of not sort of being able to keep up to an ever changing ■eeconomy fuels worker disconte. and it emerges in these both in the public and private sector. it emerges also the demands for union reform precisely because the workplace itself and its connection with the community refer imperiled and need to be addressed, and that the was there to address it is inadequate to an expanding sense of worker but also an expand the need for worker protections. all of that fuels the kind of

li about. but we can also look very at public employee worker actions in this case, just a number of works stoppages in the public sector that escalates from 1958. i'm sure all 15 work stoppages throughout the course of the 1960s in which there average number of work stoppages basically increases to about 400 work stoppages a year. some of the most specific and most dramatic strikes in the public sector are in the two areas. i talked we're talking about public sectors in general, but also in the specific field education during 1960s, teachers go on strike more than 300 times

in more than a thousand school districts and involve and are involved in at 23,000 other work actions. the 1968, which is this pivotal year, also sees the emergence of new to take on these conditions. also in 1968 i think dramatically almost everyone knows about sanitation workers strike in sanitation workers who abuse on unrepresented and uncompensated starts in memphis, tennessee, a chance to do again i mean the the sort of trigger moment is when to sanitation workers are killed biosynthesis in truck machinery missed functioning they are basically and it sparks this anger but also sense the

sanitation workers have to stand upand martin luther king famously comes down to memphis to basically a rally with and standmatter justice, ne working working justice for the working man as well as justice for african-americans. we see here a sign there■f the o freedom. finally, in 1970 and again, this is very striking. there's a postal workers strike in march that involves most major cities andstrikers. not surprisingly women workers , are also under-represented labor unions, at least at the

beginning of the decade and by the end of the decade, we'll see real in their membership. how is this fueled? we could talk about the emergence as 1950s and possibly earlier labor feminists that is women who work in the labor movement for the labor movement or organizations who see a connection between women's labor force participation and their ability to get union protections with the cause of women's equality in society. by the 1960s. groups like, the national organization for women and the women's action. we began press for and succeed in new, such as the civil rights act of 64. the act of 63 to directly address women's inequality in the wkpce then which sort of becomes

famously by the shorthand title seven changes everything from the way that you look for a job to the kind of opportunities become open to women. i think shockingly for people who grew up in the 1980s or later, there's no recognition in all that job ads which now appear online. but then used to be improved. what usually coded bywant in a e would specify or work wanted one would right. but as a say worker wanted male worker wanted female and these this job is not for you. if you don't belong to this biological sex, do not show up at the door. if you are female for current, do not show up at the door for a

flight attendant's job if you are male. so there's there's a very clear separation beginning with the job ad but also through the process through a ranking of candidates and even content of interviews, what title seven was meant too equality or to be by sort of leveling the playing field, but also making sure that people manage the same questions. that credential were weighed on those sides of the line in the past. inequalities, well, at least prioritized the hiring of excluded groups guaranteed, but it guarantees that we can in the hiring process. this move which opened up all kinds of professions, occupations and to women really is the context within which women's labor union

needs to be considered so through the course of the 1960s and seventies, it became that women needed a voice and. through that decade, youe coalir unions, but also some theories, intives to bring women into the workplace and give them greater equality. some of these would literally be programs that were set out the 1970s to recruit women into the building trades into the skilled trades, but to look at a little bit more traditional. we could also look at the growth of clerical unionism. there are very few women workalo were represented by unions in probably most. those work in the public sector agencies. but banks, insurance companies, even retail stores, other places

hiring officers in corporations. other kinds of clerical work tend to be unrepresented by unions and tend to be incredibly difficult to organize. andlecture. but the focus very specific on a few things is that there also was no labor union ready to take this on. and so what you saw in the 40 seconds and 70 was that women groueswomen. such as 9 to 5, which was a group in boston decided that it's really time to basically bring women into the labor movement where. statistically, they would earn higher wages and have a greater benefit. and so they docally by tapping specific workplaces. one of the key seventies

and eighties was actually within higher education where university clerical was at places columbia boston university university of minnesota. university of illinois. nyu began to organize among themselves, some of them aided by 9 to 5, which becomes all subsidiary or a member or of seiu, an affiliate union, but also independent unions that later with a connect up with the uaw or asked me to bring university clerical into a bigger national union that might help them to pursue their goals but also provide a structure and process for bargaining and contracts. all of this was sort of a consequence of the of rights but

in turn expanded roles. up to now we've been talking about sort of a story success. one of the reasons why the seventies is sort of seen as this turbulent if you look at it from a labor historian'perspecte you reform universal or continu. to refer back to fraser's comment about the one sided war on working class. a lot of it has to do with changing economic and political circumstance since it began to limit workers rights, failed to support union rights, but also change fundamentally economic context in which unions. y who looks at the seventies was energy crisis and in on the workforce.

so the energy crisis has a tremendous impact on the economy and especially on the manufacturing sector. the explanation probably goes back to the 1940s, but the most factor was the arab-israeli war of 1973, when the organization of petroleum exporting countries declared, an oil embargo. this embargo signaled the growth of arabic arab nationalism. can i do that again? opec's embargo. the growth of arab movement. but it was also, as someone said, the sort of an energy pearlr. the united states, which always easy access to petroleum, not just as its own country, but in the middle east, suddenly is

dealing with the drastic decline of oil exports and the increase in prices. between 19 january 1973 and january 1974, oil prices over 350%. the result of which was not just lines at the gas station or a certain of oil. social turmoil and fear, not to mention oil, spurred inflation, but also that workers were faced with the reality the rising prices and of a manufacturing sector that was trying decrease its energy consumption and reduce its labor force. at the same time, when this embargo was going on, oil profits in this included american companies go up 70% during 1973 and another 40% in

1974. all this meant that the manufacturing sector needed to particularly looking at consumer demand, which was changing and which began to use of oil prices. fuel efficient cars that were smaller with more efficient engines. and th looked not to the united states automakers, which could not produced the same kind of car, but rather as a japanese made economy and fuel efficient, like toyota, datsun. now, nisman and vw from germany. this meant a severe decline in domestic sales and manufactured with the auto companies laying off workers. general motors for example laid off 30,000 workers perma tempor,

beginning a three decade long in domestic automobile. and thev uaw and the principal union of automotive workers losing membership was american automobile production had other effects. the demand for american steel declines in the seventies and 1980s. it also meant that communities in autoworkers lived would experience a decline in. tax revenues would experience felt like reagan would experience change in the kind of economy that drove dearborn and line cities and counties in what becomes called the rust belt but also even a change in who in the town would be the most prominent. what factor in society would begin to dominate in politics.

the steel industry also, as i noted, was a kind of collateral damage to the us steel industry begins to collapse. and in youngstown, ohio, one of the major steel producing centers. in 1977 experienced a severe. ■youngstown sheet and tube closs campbell mill that fall moving. 1977 the major auction of cement steel production to indian river works near chicago. of the 22,000 workers employed by the company five go youngstown, workers were unemployed. u.s. steel youngstown plant soon followed suit in 1979 and 1980, with another 10,000 lost jobs. so the steel industry collapsed.

but not just in youngstown, across the united states. jobs were lost. in 19, steel plants were closed in each states as. an enormous impact on the economic vitality of the midwest and also the viability of labor that were heavily organized in the manufacture shoring sector. in the 1980s, there were over hundred thousand workers in the united employed in electronics. by 2000, i outsourcing production of electronics led to a sharp. only 20,000 workers were working electronics in the united states. by 1990. and if you that to where the electronics in manufacturing moved which is in the mckeel indoor zone between mexico the

united states. more than 500 maquiladoras or electronics factors period per. workers also began to change because if you looked at manufacturing in the united states was predominantly white and male in the in the 1970s the mckillop d'oro factory which had to be to produce electronics goods in the 1970s were workforce that werepredominantln or mexican and american offshore manufacturing also produced the best majority of electronics goods. so that in asia latin america and central america, you would see the majority of electronics

production. when manufacturing goes was steps. and we talked a little bit about the information sector and i think there is an expansion poultry industry but it's more significant and certainly more prominent that workers who are no longer employed to manufacture and can be hired in retail and and the service sector more broadly. and by the 1990s, let me use an example. the average job in the 1950s was probably aacturing job maybe as late as the 1960s, but by the 1970s and the 1980s, the average job would have been in retail, it wouldn't have been in manufacturing, or it would been in general in the service industry. and in the 1990. as your stereotype job was more

likely at a wal-mart or in a mcdonald's than it would have been any kind of manufacturing or professional sector. wal-mart has a corporation also. what that landscape looks like, not just in retail and in manufacturing, because wal-mart begins to makets with insource its supply of woods from abroad in guangdong province in-8 china more than 40 million migrant workers were employed to basically goods for the american market with 130 bales of garments, shops, new cities and included for instance, shenzhen which grew from no city at all to 7 million people in 25 years and all cities like one to all, canton

basically expanding is popular to fuel the new industry. the big box stores contract, production and consumer tastes and retail with very small margins with asian manufacturers in particular the■ low prices meant low low wages in this sector and, the average american wage first becomes stagnant and then begins to drop in the course of the 1970s. so what has that to do with today? did the war on the american class succeed in effect it? had some impact. it included stagnant wages for er two decades. as i said, the beginning of the purchasing power of the minimu'n

1960s and the pandemic. of 2020, where labor demand and labor supply play a role in beginning to slowly increase the minimum wage and its purchasing power alongside wages like the living wage campaign in. like the living wage campaign and the fight for 15 to increase wages and compensation not just essentia workers, workers who work in the low paid sector in food service and transportation, and in the increase of compensation. and that's sector tended to also lead to increased wages compensation packages in other essential fields like care and education, but we have to be honest, the unionization rate in

2024 is under 11%, although popular support for unions is highest it's been since the 1960s. there's been a growth in inequality. the s, especially income inequality. and it certainly has fueled political division but also a new among working. our economy is increasing only ■service based and information n our growing understanding of what that means for us has led to growing worker organization, the gig economy slept workers no fighting for union representation and the right to organize and places that have begun to show real traction in 2023 and then 2024. the pandemic crisis which was

unimagined in the 1970s, laid bare just how workers remain the front line of risk, not just the risks that we talked about in the 1970s of speed up in machinery leading to greater worker death and worker injury, but alsorisk of infection. risk of death. and we could also see the kind of conditis both in the pandemid afterwards, which left workers the board moreorking conditions with increased risk of disease, injury and death, which which fundamentalhange related people saw their work. and finally, the understanding that has come about in the midst of these conditions that.

workers are now at the frontline of this new labor militancy. it's not the old unions ■jthough old unions like the auto the steelworkers and the mine workers and the teamsters still higher education worker, which they provide structure and sometimes resources and assets but also unions to look over the landscape and begin to ask what should a labor union look like? who should be members? what are the legitimate boundaries and the correct aspirations actions for workers using labor union worker organizations, the workplace. so a very old question that dates back to the 19th century, i think it's.

shops to is a russian first as the question in the pamphlet what is to b■, done. history classes exist to help you think about what hgktory in rs to similar that we might have today. and i would ask you to think about what are the issues move labor today after nearly 50 years of d industrialization and labor movement decline but also after the new spark of militancy. the new wave of understanding about the workplace and about the role of work and as appropriate rights compensations. 2023 was not a strike year like 1919 1934, 1946, 1950. it didn't even match strike until th19 average of 2 million workers went out on

5000 strikes a year. but and collective action or according to euler's labor tracker 2023 sort saw 500 according labor tracker 2023. so 151 strike action in 717. location involving more than half a million workers in 2023 alone, the uaw major contracts we all major three major u.s. automakers in a historic strike writers and actors when around strike for the guild and said after united parcel service and permanente went out on strike. kaiser permanente seiu local involved the health care workere

than 75,000 workers on strike hotel and casino workers in las vegas, los angeles and detroit airline pilots in more workplaces than companies have seen organizing drives than we have seen the past two decades. executive director of the center fo justice economy at her only name, sharon blau. basically that the alliance republican labor movement in this year, in this period of time has potential to influence dynamics even more in 2024 than in 2023. so when you're thinking about the 1970s, the parallel of both an economy in flux faced with new challenges and dangers along th an of discontent and

activism. when you think about those parallels their historical predict the united states and the labor going forward. thank. ■