Strife and Satisfaction: Labour

Abstract

More important to American workers than the faltering steps taken by the New Deal towards economic recovery was the startling growth of organised labour. The New Deal may have failed to disturb the basic structure of American business, but it did appear to have facilitated the formation of a countervailing force in the trades union movement. The 1930s saw the largest ever growth in union membership in a single decade in both absolute and relative terms: trades union membership trebled; by 1940 23 per cent of the non-agricultural labour force was organised. The gains were to be decisive and permanent: by 1945 the war had consolidated the growth in membership at 25 per cent of the workforce. Thereafter there would be no significant increases.