Interpreting the Communist Party USA’s Historical Role in the US Trade Unions: Insights from the Early Institutionalist Theory of Industrial Relations

Abstract

ABSTRACTFrom 1935 to 1945, the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) trade unionists were indefatigable and dedicated organizers for the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). The objective of this article is to analyze the CPUSA’s role in the US trade union movement through applying the early institutionalist theory of industrial relations. This theory was selected because it provided the intellectual underpinning for New Deal trade union policy when the CIO was formed and continued to be the foremost US industrial relations theory for more than half a century. Based on institutionalist criteria, the CPUSA-led unions were much more effective in creating a dynamic trade unionism than the business unionists backed by the institutionalists. When the party actively organized the CIO’s industrial unions, it embraced a reformist viewpoint, adopting the Popular Front through its defense of democracy and its vigorous anti-fascism. If the CPUSA had not utilized this approach, it is uncertain if the early institutionalists’ New Deal trade union policy would have been achieved. In order to revitalize US trade unionism, twenty-first century left trade unionists can profit from studying the CPUSA trade unionists’ role in functioning as the CIO’s militant minority’s largest and most critical segment.