Labor Defense Research Articles

The Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research, Los Angeles

The roots of today's Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research (SCL) are planted deep in the labor and political movements of America of the 1930s. A witness or participant in many of these swiftly developing events, SCL founder Emil Freed knew the importance of documenting them, from the formation of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) to the activities of working-class support organizations such as the Unemployed Councils and the International Labor Defense. Having joined the American Communist party in 1929, Freed was part of a political organization that had its greatest impact during the Depression. In the years just prior to World War II, the Party often worked in coalitions with other groups, organizing Americans around the domestic economic crisis and the cause of antifascism, particularly the Spanish Republic's struggle against Franco during the Spanish Civil War. Freed began saving the numerous penny pamphlets that were widely

The international labor defense and black America

(1985). The international labor defense and black America. Labor History: Vol. 26, No. 2, pp. 165-194.

Labour's defence of NHS

Labour's decision to take the government to task over its plans for the future of the National Health Service as platform from which to show off the debating skills of its new leader, Mr Neil Kinnock, paid off. The Grenada affair led to the debate being delayed for day, but that proved no disadvantage and Mr Kinnock came up with exactly what was needed?a good, fighting speech that greatly enthused his backbenchers by staking out reasonable claim for Labour to be the defender of the NHS. He argued that the NHS could not be dismembered or dismantled by British prime ministers or foreign economists, because it was not theirs to get rid of. It belongs to the British people and they will strive to retain their proud possession, he said. He also accused the Prime Minister, who had decided not to take part, of treating the service with contempt. Her approach and that of the health rninisters to the NHS was a mixture of private profiteering and Victorian philanthropy, he said. The NHS was already the most efficient health service in the world, with adrninis trative costs only 6% of the budget, far less than in France, Italy, or the United States, while the government's claim of 17% increase in spending on it was only true in relation to the retail price index and did not take into account the rise in the price of medical supplies. Its policies amounted to an unmitigated crime against the people of this country. The point is it got his side cheering, which was the purpose of the exercise. The government's tactic for the week was to announce decisions to define Labour's attack. First came acceptance of the Griffiths report's proposals for new management structure (p 1391), and then in the debate itself decision at long last on the Acheson report.

In Defense of Labor and Monopoly Capital

In Defense of Labor and Monopoly Capital

The Working Class Family, Women's Liberation, and Class Struggle: The Case of Nineteenth Century British History

Recent Marxist analyses have focused on the working class family as the arena of domestic labour and the context of the reproduction of labour- power. The effect has been to view the family in terms of the functional prerequi sites of capitalism, and to locate its reproduction in the reproduction of capital. But to look only from the perspective of capital is to neglect the role of class struggle. This paper attempts to redress this bias by arguing that in certain per iods of capitalist development labour's defence of the family, a defence moti vated by the family's role in the determination of the standard of living, the development of class cohesion and the waging of class struggle, was an important reason for its survival.

The Canadian Labor Defense League and the Scottsboro Case, 1931-1932: Some Documents

The Canadian Labor Defense League and the Scottsboro Case, 1931-1932: Some Documents

Labour's Defence Policy: Promises and Performance

Labour's Defence Policy: Promises and Performance

Studies in War Economics.The Labour Situation in Great Britain: A Survey, May-October, 1940.Labor and National Defense: A Survey of the Special Labor Problems Arising from America's Defense Activities and a Program for Action. The Factual Findings. Lloyd G. ReynoldsThe Program. Labor Committee

Studies in War Economics.The Labour Situation in Great Britain: A Survey, May-October, 1940.Labor and National Defense: A Survey of the Special Labor Problems Arising from America's Defense Activities and a Program for Action. The Factual Findings. Lloyd G. ReynoldsThe Program. Labor Committee