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CIO-PAC
The first-ever "political action committee" in the United States of America was the Congress of Industrial Organizations – Political Action Committee or CIO-PAC (1943–1955). What distinguished the CIO-PAC from previous political groups (including the AFL's political operations) was its "open, public operation, soliciting support from non-CIO unionists and from the progressive public. ... Moreover, CIO political operatives would actively participate in intraparty platform, policy, and candidate selection processes, pressing the broad agenda of the industrial union movement." Background In his 1993 memoir, John Abt, general counsel for the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America under Sidney Hillman, claimed the leaders of the Communist Party of the USA had inspired the idea of the CIO-PAC: In 1943, Gene Dennis came to me and Lee Pressman to first raise the idea of a political action committee to organize labor support for Roosevelt in the approaching 1944 election. Pres ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Abt
John Jacob Abt (May 1, 1904 – August 10, 1991) was an American lawyer and politician, who spent most of his career as chief counsel to the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) and was a member of the Communist Party and the Soviet spy network " Ware Group" as alleged by Whittaker Chambers. Background Abt was born on May 1, 1904, in Chicago, Illinois. His sister was Marion Bachrach. He was a graduate of the University of Chicago, and from its law school. Career Abt practiced real estate and corporate law in Chicago from 1927 to 1933. Government (1933–1938) Abt was the Chief of Litigation, Agricultural Adjustment Administration from 1933 to 1935, assistant general counsel of the Works Progress Administration in 1935 (where Lee Pressman was also working), chief counsel to Senator Robert La Follette, Jr.'s Committee from 1936 to 1937 and special assistant to the United States Attorney General, 1937 and 1938. Unions (1938–1948) From 1938 to 1948, he worked at chief counse ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Calvin Benham Baldwin
Calvin Benham Baldwin, also known as Calvin B Baldwin, C.B. Baldwin, and generally as "Beanie" Baldwin (August 19, 1902 – May 12, 1975), served as assistant to US Secretary of Agriculture Henry A. Wallace and administrator of the New Deal's Farm Security Administration in the 1930s, worked for the CIO in the 1940s, and then worked with the Progressive Party from 1948 to 1955. Background Calvin Benham Baldwin was born on August 19, 1902, in Radford, Virginia. He attended the Virginia Polytechnic Institute from 1920 to 1923. Career Early years (1923–1933) For five years during the 1920s, he worked for the Norfolk and Western Railroad. In 1929, Baldwin became the manager and owner of the Electric Sales and Service Company in East Radford, Virginia. Government service (1933–1943) With the advent of the New Deal, Baldwin became assistant to Secretary of Agriculture Henry A. Wallace. He first worked with the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA) and then as assista ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lee Pressman
Lee Pressman (July 1, 1906 – November 20, 1969) was a labor attorney and earlier a US government functionary, publicly alleged in 1948 to have been a spy for Soviet intelligence during the mid-1930s (as a member of the Ware Group), following his recent departure from Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) as a result of its purge of Communist Party members and fellow travelers. From 1936 to 1948, he represented the CIO and member unions in landmark collective bargaining deals with major corporations including General Motors and U.S. Steel. According to journalist Murray Kempton, anti-communists referred to him as "Comrade Big." Marion Dickerman and Ruth Taylor (eds.), ''Who's Who In Labor: The Authorized Biographies of the Men and Women Who Lead Labor in the United States and Canada and of Those Who Deal with Labor.'' New York: The Dryden Press, 1946; pg.286. Background Pressman was born Leon Pressman on July 1, 1906, on the Lower East Side of in New York City, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sidney Hillman
Sidney Hillman (March 23, 1887 – July 10, 1946) was an American labor leader. He was the head of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America and was a key figure in the founding of the Congress of Industrial Organizations and in marshaling labor's support for Presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt, first and second terms, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal coalition of the History of the United States Democratic Party, Democratic Party. Early life Sidney Hillman was born in Žagarė, Lithuania, then part of the Russian Empire, on March 23, 1887, the son of Lithuanian Jews, Lithuanian Jewish parents. Sidney's maternal grandfather was a small-scale merchant; his paternal grandfather was a rabbi known for his piety and lack of concern for material possessions.Steven Fraser, ''Labor Will Rule: Sidney Hillman and the Rise of American Labor.'' New York: The Free Press, 1991; pp. 3-4. Hillman's father was himself an impoverished merchant, more concerned with reading and praye ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philip Murray
Philip Murray (May 25, 1886 – November 9, 1952) was a Scottish-born steelworker and an American labor leader. He was the first president of the Steel Workers Organizing Committee (SWOC), the first president of the United Steelworkers of America (USWA), and the longest-serving president of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). Early life Murray was born in Blantyre, Scotland, in 1886. His father, William Murray, was a Catholic coal miner and union leader who emigrated from Ireland to Scotland prior to his son's birth. His mother, the former Rose Layden, was a cotton mill weaver. Rose died when Philip was only two years old. William Murray remarried and had eight more children. Philip was the oldest boy, and after only a few years of public education, he went to work in the coal mines at 10 to help support the family. In 1902, Philip and his father emigrated to the United States. They settled in the Pittsburgh region and obtained jobs as coal miners. Young ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Political Action Committee
In the United States, a political action committee (PAC) is a tax-exempt 527 organization that pools campaign contributions from members and donates those funds to campaigns for or against candidates, ballot initiatives, or legislation. The legal term PAC was created in pursuit of campaign finance reform in the United States. Democracies of other countries use different terms for the units of campaign spending or spending on political competition (see political finance). At the U.S. federal level, an organization becomes a PAC when it receives or spends more than $1,000 for the purpose of influencing a federal election, and registers with the Federal Election Commission (FEC), according to the Federal Election Campaign Act as amended by the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (also known as the McCain–Feingold Act). At the state level, an organization becomes a PAC according to the state's election laws. Contributions to PACs from corporate or labor union treasuries ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Brophy (labor)
John Brophy (1883–1963) was an important figure in the United Mine Workers of America (UWMA) in the 1920s and the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) in the 1930s and 1940s. He was the last major challenger to John L. Lewis' power within the UMWA and, after Lewis hired him back, a key leader within the CIO. The Mine Workers Brophy was born in Lancashire, England to a family of miners. His family emigrated to the United States when he was nine years old and found work in the central Pennsylvania coal mines. Brophy began working in the mines at age eleven; by the age of fourteen, he had joined the UMWA. He rose within the union to become president of District 2 of the UMWA. Brophy ran against Lewis for President of the UMWA in 1926 on a "Save the Union" slate, calling for nationalization of the coal industry. He probably would have won the election if the vote had been held democratically. Lewis drove Brophy and his supporters from the union after his victory in 1926. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Political Action Committee
In the United States, a political action committee (PAC) is a tax-exempt 527 organization that pools campaign contributions from members and donates those funds to campaigns for or against candidates, ballot initiatives, or legislation. The legal term PAC was created in pursuit of campaign finance reform in the United States. Democracies of other countries use different terms for the units of campaign spending or spending on political competition (see political finance). At the U.S. federal level, an organization becomes a PAC when it receives or spends more than $1,000 for the purpose of influencing a federal election, and registers with the Federal Election Commission (FEC), according to the Federal Election Campaign Act as amended by the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (also known as the McCain–Feingold Act). At the state level, an organization becomes a PAC according to the state's election laws. Contributions to PACs from corporate or labor union treasuries ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Congress Of Industrial Organizations
The Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) was a federation of Labor unions in the United States, unions that organized workers in industrial unionism, industrial unions in the United States and Canada from 1935 to 1955. Originally created in 1935 as a committee within the American Federation of Labor (AFL) by John L. Lewis, a leader of the United Mine Workers (UMW), and called the Committee for Industrial Organization. Its name was changed in 1938 when it broke away from the AFL. It focused on organizing Skill (labor), unskilled workers, who had been ignored by most of the AFL unions. The CIO supported Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal coalition, and membership in it was open to African Americans. CIO members voted for Roosevelt overwhelmingly. Both the CIO and its rival the AFL grew rapidly during the Great Depression. The rivalry for dominance was bitter and sometimes it was violent. In its statement of purpose, the CIO said that it had formed to encourage the AFL to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philadelphia Transportation Company
The Philadelphia Transportation Company (PTC) was the main public transit operator in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from 1940 to 1968. A private company, PTC was the successor to the Philadelphia Rapid Transit Company (PRT), in operation since 1902, and was the immediate predecessor of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA). History PTC was established on January 1, 1940, by the merger of the PRT and several smaller, then-independent transit companies operating in and near the city. It operated a citywide system of bus, trolley, and trackless trolley routes, the Market–Frankford Line (subway-elevated rail), the Broad Street Line (subway), and the Delaware River Bridge Line (subway-elevated rail to City Hall in Camden, New Jersey, and now part of the PATCO Speedline) which became SEPTA's City Transit Division. PTC operated the rapid transit lines in urban Philadelphia – principally the Market–Frankford Line and Broad Street Line – leasing th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
African-Americans
African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa. African Americans constitute the second largest ethno-racial group in the U.S. after White Americans. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of Africans enslaved in the United States. In 2023, an estimated 48.3 million people self-identified as Black, making up 14.4% of the country’s population. This marks a 33% increase since 2000, when there were 36.2 million Black people living in the U.S. African-American history began in the 16th century, with Africans being sold to European slave traders and transported across the Atlantic to the Western Hemisphere. They were sold as slaves to European colonists and put to work on plantations, particularly in the southern colonies. A few were able to achieve freedom through ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Strike Action
Strike action, also called labor strike, labour strike in British English, or simply strike, is a work stoppage caused by the mass refusal of employees to Working class, work. A strike usually takes place in response to employee grievances. Strikes became common during the Industrial Revolution, when Labour economics, mass labor became important in factories and mines. As striking became a more common practice, governments were often pushed to act (either by private business or by union workers). When government intervention occurred, it was rarely neutral or amicable. Early strikes were often deemed unlawful conspiracies or anti-competitive cartel action and many were subject to massive legal repression by state police, federal military power, and federal courts. Many Western nations legalized striking under certain conditions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Strikes are sometimes used to pressure governments to change policies. Occasionally, strikes destabilize the r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
