The American Prospect
•69% Informative
President Biden said Friday that record profits should be shared by record contracts for the UAW .
Peter Bergen : The most consequential pro-labor strike intervention by a presidential administration came during the 1945-1946 strike against General Motors .
He says President Truman ’s fact-finding commission found GM could raise hourly wage by 19.5 cents without having to raise its prices.
Bergen says it was the most pro-union utterance an American president has ever made.
In 1950 , the UAW , with Reuther as its president, signed a contract with GM that included a host of innovative provisions.
Reuther’s second demand, for co-determination, was never met, but four years later , his first demand—boosting wages to the point that they boosted consumption—was not only met.
The number of UAW members at GM , Ford , and Stellantis constitutes less than 0.1 percent of the U.S. workforce.
In 1936-37 sitdowns were the result of desperation and spread "like a hungry fire," says Julian Zelizer .
Today 's UAW strikes built the America to which, with various modifications, today ’s Americans aspire.
Zelizer: The UAW 's strikes were the spark that turned America into the first nation in human history to have a middle-class majority.
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