WAR, DEPRESSION & A NEW DEAL

Questions

1. Why should workers join unions? Why would employers refuse to recognize their workers' unions?
2. Why would public speech in foreign languages be forbidden? Should it be today?
3. How should government assist employers and workers during labor strikes?

Activities

1. Invite a union member, union organizer or worker involved in a union campaign to speak with the class about the struggle to build a union. Later, role-play this struggle, assigning students to roles of employer, union organizer, worker, union buster, politician, police, etc.
2. Identify ways employers resist unions/union demands.
3. Describe services provided by food kitchens, settlement houses, etc. Why are such services necessary? Could these needs be met in some other way?

Vocabulary ostracize

contingent

subsistence

electronics

negotiate

Glossary

sit-down strike: a strike in which, rather than being locked out of their workplace by their employer, workers refuse to leave their workplace until their grievances have been addressed.

bolshevik: originally, those who in 1917 formed the Communist Party in Russia; later, in the U.S., a term applied to labor and other progressive activists implying that they (and their activities) were un-American.

Resources

Map/Guide, # 29, 30, 41, 45, 47, 49
Michael Yates, Why Unions Matter. (1998)
Irving Bernstein, The Lean Years: A History of American Workers 1920-1933. (1960)
Irving Bernstein, Turbulent Years: A History of American Workers 1933-1941. (1969)