Glossary

affirmative action—policies designed to facilitate employment or advancement of those traditionally subjected to discrimination (such as ethnic or racial minorities and women).

AFL (also A.F. of L.)—American Federation of Labor.

AFL-CIO—the merged American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, which came into being in 1955.

American Federation of Labor—a federation of unions that was established in 1886 (with a predecessor, the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions, formed in 1881).

American Plan—a post–World War I offensive by employers to combat unionism.

anarchist—wants a society without bosses, where people run things without a government. While “anarchy” is commonly understood to mean chaos and confusion, the anarchist uses the word to indicate a different goal—a relatively harmonious, self-governing society in which freedom reigns.

apprentice—a person learning a craft or skilled trade; after serving an apprenticeship, this person becomes a journeyman.

arbitration—when a union and company are unable to settle a dispute and refer the issue to someone who is supposed to be a neutral third party who listens to both sides and then makes a decision (that is usually binding for both sides).

artisan—independent skilled worker, generally self-employed.

assembly line—a beltline on which workers assemble a product, each one performing small task in a process resulting in a finished product. An essential innovation in the development of mass production industries in the early twentieth century, this involved a combined de-skilling and intensification of labor that gave the employers and their managers greater control over the labor process while at the same time spectacularly increasing productivity and profits.

automation—involving technological innovations at a workplace, in which human labor is replaced by electronically run and often computerized equipment.

bargaining unit—a specified group of workers who bargain collectively with their employer.

blacklist—a secret list, shared by employers, of union members, radicals, or others who may be considered “undesirable”; those on the list are excluded from employment.

blue-collar worker—worker engaged in manual or physical labor in factories, mines, construction, transportation, etc.

boycott—refusal to buy certain products; used by unions to pressure businesses that are fighting against unions. Also may involve a union’s refusal to handle goods that are the focus of a strike—such as the refusal of the American Railway Union to handle Pullman cars during the 1894 Pullman strike.

bureaucracy—the functioning of administrative hierarchies and routines for the purpose of governing and regulating complex social entities. Bureaucracies are very pronounced in most major institutions in modem society: government agencies, large-scale businesses, etc. They function supposedly to enhance efficiency and accountability, but they often are seen as concentrating excessive power in a few hands while also—for those at the bottom of the hierarchy or outside of the bureaucratic apparatus—replacing cumbersome and fixed routines for intelligent judgments. There is controversy over the extent to which managerial bureaucracies remove control of business corporations from their owners (many social scientists have concluded that top managers and top stockholders are closely interlinked), but such bureaucracies certainly represent an increase of powerlessness for a company’s employees. It has also been argued that, especially with the development of “business unionism,” union bureaucracies have in many instances smothered a sense of democratic participation by the memberships of various unions.

business—serious activity. Often referring to a profit-making enterprise, it can also refer to all businessmen or capitalists.

business agent—a union official who handles workers’ grievances, organizes new workers, bargains with employers, etc. The term is most commonly associated with AFL unions; CIO unions more often use terms such as “organizer” or “representative.”

business unionism—a narrowly focused form of unionism, embracing the capitalist system and focusing on improving wages, hours, working conditions, etc. for the union’s membership.

capital—the money that is used to open or run a business; the machinery and material in which such money is invested; the products of such a business; the money made from the sale of these products. When one is speaking of “labor and capital” the term refers to all businessmen (or capitalists).

capitalism—an economic system in which the economy is privately owned, more or less controlled by the owners, and utilized for the purpose of maximizing profits for the owners; it involves generalized commodity production—that is, it draws more and more aspects of life into a buying-and-selling economy (or market economy). The most dynamic economic system in history, it has gone through a number of stages—sometimes given such labels as commercial capitalism, industrial capitalism, corporate capitalism—and has over and over again transformed the labor process, the working class, all of society, and the world.

capitalist—a business person, some one making a living through the ownership of a capitalist enterprise, generally of a large-scale.

central labor council—a city or county federation of local unions that are affiliated to various national or international unions.

CIO—Congress of Industrial Organizations; prior to 1938, Committee for Industrial Organization.

class—a sector of the population defined by its relationship to the economy; broader than the concept of “occupation.” For example, the working class includes people who work in many different occupations.

class collaboration—a far-reaching form of worker/capitalist cooperation that turns away from the notion of class conflict and is generally based on the acceptance of capitalism.

class struggle—ongoing antagonism, tension, and conflict between classes, particularly workers and capitalists.

CLC—Canadian Labor Congress. Some international unions with members in the United States and Canada today are affiliated both with the AFL-CIO and the CLC.

closed shop—a workplace where only union members can be hired—workers must join the union before being employed. Illegal under the Taft-Hartley Act.

cold war—a major confrontation—between Communist-ruled countries led by the Soviet Union (particularly Russia) and capitalist countries led by the United States, between 1946 and 1990—involving military buildups and arms races, political and economic pressures and counterpressures, covert and small-scale conflicts, and massive propaganda, even relatively small military clashes (such as in Korea and Vietnam), but not total (hot) war.

collective bargaining—when representatives of the union and company discuss wages, hours, working conditions, etc. and then write what they agree on into a contract.

commerce—business involving buying and selling.

commercial capitalism—a form of capitalism that is essentially based on commerce, buying and selling goods, as opposed to producing goods (which is industrial capitalism); also called “mercantile capitalism.”

commodity—something produced for the purpose of selling it.

Communism—holds that society, not businessmen, should run and benefit from the economy. Over the centuries there have been many variants of communist theory, the most modern being a form of revolutionary socialism associated with the views of Karl Marx and with the 1917 Russian revolution led by V. I. Lenin, which later degenerated into a brutal dictatorship under Josef Stalin. The term has therefore had opposite connotations for different people—as something either representing or destroying freedom and democracy.

company—a business.

company store—a store set up by a company for its employees, who are often forced to buy only from that store, generally at higher prices.

company town—a town set up by a company for its employees, generally placing them under greater control of their bosses.

company union—a phony union set up and controlled by a company for its employees, to prevent a real union from being organized.

Congress of Industrial Organizations—a federation of industrial unions which emerged from the AFL and became independent in 1938; it merged with the AFL in 1955 to form the AFL-CIO.

conservative—someone who is inclined toward traditional ways of doing things, often wanting to preserve existing power relationships.

consumerism—a cultural development related to the mass production and mass marketing techniques arising in industrial capitalist countries during the twentieth century, in which a majority of people in society are powerfully oriented toward buying more and more consumer goods (often as a substitute for other, more meaningful orientations involving freedom, creativity, a sense of community, etc.).

contract—a written agreement between unionized workers and a company regarding the rights and obligations of each (including wages, hours, working conditions, etc.) which is to govern their working relationship for a set period of time—often one, two, or three years.

corporation—the primary form of business ownership under modern-day capitalism, which facilitates the amassing of larger investment capital and also provides various legal and financial protections to the owners. The ownership of the business is divided into a number of shares of stock that are bought by various people (stockholders) who regularly receive a share of the profits equivalent to the amount of stock they own; each share also enables them to vote on policies and for officers of the corporation (although a small number of big stockholders invariably have a controlling interest). The dominant corporation today is the multinational corporation (sometimes called transnational corporation) which has extensive operations in a multiple number of countries.

corruption—degeneration from the original intentions, goals, or nature of something.

cost-of-living index—the Consumer Price Index prepared by the U.S. Labor Department, measuring changes in the cost of living month by month and year by year.

craft—a job requiring much skill and experience.

craftsman—a person who works at a craft (sometimes economically independent, sometimes employed by someone else).

craft union—a union organized along lines of specific skilled crafts.

culture—having to do with the way of life of a society or group of people, including political and economic dynamics, customs and family patterns, religions and values, ideologies or ways of understanding reality, education, ways of relating to people, creative and artistic expressions, etc.

democracy—a form of government involving rule by the people.

depression—an economic downturn involving large-scale business failures and massive unemployment.

discrimination—unequal treatment because of race, sex, religion, nationality, union membership, etc.

downsizing—laying off employees, then forcing the workers who remain to increase their output in order to make up for the diminished workforce.

dual unionism—an orientation of creating and maintaining a separate trade union, for either ideological or practical reasons, that competes with an already-existing trade union. The IWW and CIO were both accused by the AFL leadership of “dual unionism” that would split the ranks of organized labor (although both of these AFL rivals, representing a more expansive social unionism than the “pure and simple” orientation dominating the AFL, also stood for the unionization of unskilled mass-production workers largely ignored by the old AFL).

dues—a sum paid regularly for membership in an organization to which one belongs; union dues have been essential in paying for a union staff (organizers, negotiators, etc.), offices and meeting halls, strike funds, leaflets and newspapers, and other things required by a cohesive and substantial organization.

dues checkoff—a clause in many union contracts authorizes the employer to deduct union dues from employees’ paychecks and turn them over to the union. Some argue that this greatly enhances the financial stability of the union, others that it contributes to a decline in contact between union members and the organization representing them.

economy—the activities and relationships people enter into, and the resources they rely on in order to get the things that they need and want.

elitism—the belief (and policies flowing from the belief) that some people are better than others and therefore entitled to greater decision-making power and/or more benefits and opportunities than the others.

escalator clause—a clause in a union contract providing for automatic cost of living raises in workers’ pay to keep pace with rising consumer prices, usually measured by the Consumer Price Index.

ethnic group—a group of people at least partly set off from others because of an identification with a distinctive regional or national origin, and who share at least some elements of a common cultural background. There have been many such groups in the U.S. working class—often fragmenting a common sense of class consciousness—who identify as Irish American, Polish American, Italian American, African American, Chinese American, Mexican American, etc. Often different ethnic groups have been discriminated against, concentrated in one or another segment of the occupational structure, excluded from better paying jobs, denied membership in specific unions. Sometimes ethnic groups have been termed “races” and have been subjected to racist bigotry. Ethnic divisions were often utilized by employers to establish greater control over the workforce, at the same time undermining solidarity within the ethnically diverse working class—although the labor movement was strengthened whenever such divisions were transcended.

exploitation—has the connotation of taking unfair advantage of someone; many unionists argue that this exists whenever workers are underpaid; labor radicals generally argue that capitalists always exploit workers because the source of all value—including profits—is labor.

factory—a workplace which brings together substantial amounts of machinery, raw materials, and labor.

Fair Employment Practices Committee (FEPC)—set up by the U.S. government during World War II to eliminate discrimination in hiring and pay based on race, creed, and national origin.

fink—derogatory term for a worker not loyal to the union, who informs on fellow workers to the employer; originated as “pink,” derived from “Pinkerton” (the latter term referring to the detective agency hired to break strikes and send company spies into labor organizations).

Fordism—a term to indicate techniques associated with pioneering automobile manufacturer Henry Ford, and generalized in the U.S. economy, involving assembly-line production to increase control over the labor process and increase productivity at the same time lowering prices, while at the same time increasing wages and other benefits in order to undercut unionization and to stimulate consumption of these mass-production goods.

free enterprise—capitalism.

free trade—involves the free movement of capital (whether as investments, raw materials, or finished products) without high tariffs or other restrictions.

fringe benefits—gains in addition to wages that are negotiated for workers, such as paid vacations and holidays, health benefits, insurance, pensions, supplemental unemployment benefits, etc.

general strike—a strike of all workers in a town, city, region, or country. This involves a major power confrontation between workers and employers (and often the government as well) and if successful results in a major shift in power relations. It is seen as having revolutionary implications. (Related to, but distinct from, the notion of a more spontaneous “mass strike” development.)

globalization—the capitalist system has always been dynamically expansive and innovative, with an aggressively global reach in its quest for markets, raw materials, and investment opportunities. Some analysts argue that since the 1980s it has been undergoing a process of transformation—which they refer to as “globalization”—in which developments in technology, communications, and transportation have caused economic expansion to transcend national frameworks more dramatically than before, enabling multinational corporations to rise above any restraints or impositions that national governments or labor movements may wish to establish. This shift in power relations, according to these analysts, has resulted in dramatic increases in corporate profits but makes it difficult to prevent the deterioration of working-class living standards and the dismantling of “welfare state” reforms of the past.

goon—a violent strong-arm man brought in to break strikes and unionization efforts.

grievance—a contract violation or abuse on the job which, under union contracts, a worker can bring to the attention of a union representative or committee, which then seeks to correct it with the company. In the 1930s and 1940s these would often be dealt with and resolved through militant job actions (a brief strike known as a “quickie”); in later years more laborious grievance procedures were established to deal with such matters.

ideology—a set of ideas or a belief system utilized to make sense of reality.

incentive pay—a system of payment based on the amount of production turned out by workers.

indentured servant—someone subjected to a form of temporary slavery which bound impoverished European laborers in colonial North America to their master for a fixed period of time (between four and seven years) in exchange for a lump sum (often the price of transportation from Europe, a small parcel of forestland, and some household belongings).

industrial capitalism—a form of capitalism that is essentially based on producing goods through the factory system.

industrial democracy—a phrase once used to describe unions as a humanizing force at the workplace, sometimes having radical implications about establishing democratic control over the industrial economy.

Industrial Revolution—the major economic shift from muscle power to machine power, with great advances in technology in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries turning capitalist countries in Europe and America into mass-production economies characterized by rising productivity, dramatic increases in wealth, and intensified global expansion.

industrial union—a union which includes all workers in a particular industry or workplace regardless of their specific occupation or skill.

Industrial Workers of the World—a radical industrial union organized in 1905, which sought to enroll all workers in militant struggles to improve their wages and conditions at the workplace as part of a strategy to end capitalism and place the economy under workers’ control.

inflation—rising prices, which means that a dollar buys less than it used to. Some have argued that it is caused by greedy workers demanding pay increases. But inflation often increases even when workers’ pay does not increase. Labor radicals call for a universally imposed escalator clause as a means to defeat inflation (while acknowledging that this may be detrimental to profits of businesses).

injunction—an order by a judge not to do something (such as picketing by a union).

international union—a union with members in more than one country; many U.S. unions that also have members in Canada are called “international unions.”

IWW—Industrial Workers of the World.

Jim Crow—another word for racial segregation that places African Americans in a separate and subordinate position in relation to whites. (“Jim Crow” was a stereotyped, presumably comical African American character in racist “minstrel shows” that were popular among many nineteenth-century whites in the United States.) In the labor movement in the late nineteenth and early to mid-twentieth centuries, many union locals, especially in the AFL, refused admittance to black members but in some cases allowed the creation of “Jim Crow” locals for blacks that might be taken into the union.

journeyman—a skilled worker who has served a training period (as an apprentice) to learn his craft and is now fully qualified.

jurisdiction—involving which union has the right to represent which particular workers; failure of competing unions to agree on this results in jurisdictional disputes.

Knights of Labor—a large and inclusive organization of working people founded in 1869, first as a secret group but later as a very open and public one, which included within its purview various trade union, social, cultural, educational, and reform activities. Was most influential in the 1880s.

labor—referring to work, which is essential for the production of goods and services as well as for the acquiring of wages or salaries in our present economy, it is more generally essential for the creation of what people need to live, and is (with nature) the source of wealth. It also refers to the labor movement, and sometimes to the working class as a whole.

Labor Day—a holiday in celebration of the labor movement first initiated by labor radicals such as P. J. McGuire in New York City on September 5, 1882.

labor movement—refers to the organizations and struggles of the working class. In many countries this includes unions, political parties, consumer cooperatives, publications, clubs, and various other entities. In the United States it has often been understood more narrowly as simply “unions.”

labor party—a self-consciously working-class political party, largely based in the unions and other working-class organizations.

Landrum-Griffin Act—the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959, containing regulations for union election procedures and government supervision of their financial affairs. Initiated in the wake of government investigations of racketeering in the labor movement, although seen by many as extending dangerous precedents of government interference in union activities.

laissez-faire—French term meaning “leave alone,” referring to an economic policy which would prevent government from attempting to regulate business or develop social programs to help workers or the poor. According to partisans of laissez-faire capitalism, if the economy is controlled by profit-minded businessmen free from government interference, prosperity will result and benefits will trickle down to all.

left-wing—having to do with people, groups, ideas, etc., representing a radical form of “rule by the people,” generally anticapitalist and favoring popular control over the economy; includes socialists, communists, anarchists.

liberal—favoring a constitutional republic with civil liberties (freedom of expression), by the late nineteenth century also favoring political democracy, while at the same time embracing capitalism; nineteenth-century liberals (and today’s so-called neoliberals, also similar to “neoconservatives”) favor laissez-faire policies, while most twentieth-century liberals have favored some government regulation of the economy with social programs to aid the disadvantaged.

local union—a basic organizational unit of a union, representing all union members in a particular workplace or (in the case of some craft unions) in a particular city.

lockout—when an employer shuts down the workplace to force the workers (by “locking them out”) to meet his demands.

Marxism—a radical and socialist orientation that has had considerable influence in the labor movement, associated with the theories and perspectives of Karl Marx. Marxism includes five basic components: (1) a philosophical approach sometimes called dialectical materialism; (2) a theory of history giving stress to economic development and class struggle; (3) a critical analysis of capitalism; (4) a program for the labor movement that calls for building trade unions and labor parties and for reform struggles that lead to the workers taking political power; and (5) a vision of a socialist society to be initiated once the workers establish their political rule.

mass production—production in large quantities, through the employment of many workers and the utilization of substantial technology.

master—the master craftsman was the boss in skilled handicraft shops of the eighteenth and early nineteenth century, a former journeyman who now owned a small shop where he employed several journeymen and perhaps some apprentices to work with him; on a plantation in the pre–Civil War South, a master was the owner of slaves.

May Day—May 1, 1886 saw nationwide strikes and demonstrations for the 8-hour day, initiated by P. J. McGuire and others through the predecessor of the AFL. In 1889 the international socialist movement proclaimed this an international workers’ holiday, which it remains in many countries.

mechanic—another word for a skilled craftsman; often a skilled worker who works on machinery.

mediation—attempts by an impartial third party to get workers and management to make an agreement that will resolve a dispute.

mercantile—commercial; having to do with buying and selling

mercantilism—an economic policy, predominant in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, involving government regulation of trade and other economic activity to ensure the general welfare of the society (as defined by a king and his advisors).

merchant-capitalist—a businessman who concentrated on buying and selling (as opposed to manufacturing) commodities. He might buy raw materials, distribute them to workers in small shops or homes who would make products; then he would gather up the finished products (after paying a wage) and market them to retail stores.

middle class—a rather loose, fuzzy concept that can mean very different things, depending on the context. The “middle classes” in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries (and even in the nineteenth century in some countries) were prosperous “commoners” directly below the upper class of hereditary nobles or aristocrats. This middle layer, which secured its income through the “buying and selling” economy of capitalism, was made up of businessmen and well-to-do professionals (doctors, lawyers, etc.) who in France were called bourgeois—but after the obliteration of the aristocracy, most in this onetime middle layer now constitute an upper class. In some contexts the “middle class” later referred to small business people, shopkeepers, self-employed artisans and craftsmen, etc. Sometimes it has been used to refer to white-collar workers such as teachers, writers and journalists, government employees, clerical workers, sales employees, etc. Sometimes it refers to the bulk of the employed working class (whether blue-collar or white-collar), those who are neither rich nor poor but have a “middle income.”

militant—spirited, vigorous, uncompromising. (Often wrongly defined as the same as military activity or violent activity.)

mill—factory.

mine—site of extractive industry producing coal, iron, copper, silver, gold, etc.

minimum wage—the lowest wage an employer is allowed to pay by law or union contract.

National Labor Relations Act—passed in 1935 under the sponsorship of Senator Robert Wagner of New York, representing a fundamental government shift supportive of (while establishing certain controls over) unions. It created a National Labor Relations Board to guarantee the right of workers to form unions of their own choosing, to establish the union’s authority with the employer if a majority of workers vote for it through a supervised election, and to bargain effectively with employers. Modified by the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947.

National Labor Union—first effort, in 1866, to establish a nationwide federation of trade unions and other organizations of workers.

national union—a combination of local unions of a particular craft or industry (or set of more or less related occupations) all over the country.

nativism—hostility toward immigrants and others considered impure; generally involves racial and/or ethnic bigotry.

New Deal—sweeping social reforms, programs, and policies initiated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1930s, largely to aid working people, the unemployed, and others who were economically disadvantaged during the Great Depression.

no-strike pledge—a promise made by unions that they will not strike, generally given during wartime.

Occupational Safety Health Act (OSHA)—passed in 1970, authorizing the Secretary of Labor to establish and enforce health and safety standards in workplaces. Employer resistance and insufficient funding have hampered its implementation.

open shop—a business that—in contrast to both a union shop and a closed shop—employs workers regardless of union membership. This is a device to prevent unions from securing the right to represent the workers at that workplace.

overtime—working more than the number of normal hours set by law or union contract. Workers on overtime often receive a higher rate of pay. Sometimes they don’t have the right to refuse overtime (forced overtime). It is argued by some that overtime contributes to unemployment.

paternalism—when an authority, often an employer, considers itself the “father” of those under it, offering them benefits while seeking to regulate their lives.

pension—a regular sum of money paid to sustain a retired employee.

picketing—what workers do when they go out on strike or are locked out: walking back and forth in front of the workplace carrying signs that tell what the dispute is about, seeking to discourage nonstriking workers, scabs, and customers from entering. Mass picketing proved most effective (but has been severely limited since the late 1940s, with the passage of Taft-Hartley Act and other antilabor laws). Milder informational picketing is also utilized in non-strike situations.

piecework—instead of being paid an hourly rate, a worker is paid by the individual piece worked on or completed. Designed to force the worker to work harder and faster.

Pinkertons—agents of the Allan Pinkerton Detective Agency hired by employers throughout the country in the late nineteenth century to act as company spies in unions and to break strikes, often through force and violence. There were other strike-breaking outfits (the Burns Detective Agency, Bergoff Industrial Service, etc.), sometimes amounting to small private armies, operating widely in the United States until the late 1930s. (Sometimes local and state police or state militias performed similar functions, later causing the Pinkerton Detective Agency to shift its operations.)

plant—factory.

political action—efforts to bring about social reforms, to pressure public officials by protesting injustices, to force or block the passage of laws, to influence elections, to bring about changes in government and social policies, etc. Especially since the 1930s, U.S. unions often focused on electoral support for political candidates and lobbying Democrats and Republicans. In some countries labor electoral efforts have been geared to advance working-class parties (labor parties, socialist parties, etc.).

politics—activities having to do with the rules, institutions, and decision making that govern society. This can include deliberations within a congress or parliament, electoral campaigns and voting, referendums, lobbying, street-corner agitation for reforms, petitioning, leafleting and other public educational efforts, rallies and demonstrations, and sit-ins and other nonviolent civil disobedience. It also could include such different activities as a military coup to set up a repressive dictatorship or a mass revolution to give “power to the people.” Often economic issues and activities are also political—such as a corporation funding political candidates or seeking to break a union, or a union agitating for new laws or conducting a strike.

popular culture—a development in modern society, especially since the Industrial Revolution, involving a variety of creative activities and forms of entertainment that have mass appeal and that are related in complex ways to a consumer economy. Aspects of popular culture include music, art, movies, novels and short stories, radio, television, comic strips and comic books, sports, dance, amusement parks, video and computer games, etc. According to cultural historian Jim Cullen, “popular culture depends on the existence of a modern working class to use it, as well as to play a pivotal role in creating it.”

private enterprise—capitalism.

productivity—a measure of efficiency in production, generally involving the production of more goods with the same or less labor-time.

profit—the amount of surplus made by a businessman from the sale of his business’s product, over and above the cost of labor, machinery, raw materials, etc. There are fierce controversies over what is a “fair” profit. The dynamics of the market generally cause businessmen to seek maximum profits. Many business defenders argue that profits are the necessary incentives that provide for dynamism and growth of the economy, and that businessmen deserve all the profits they can get for the services they perform and the risks they take in organizing and running the economy. Labor radicals argue that since labor is the source of all profits, all profits are necessarily the result of exploitation.

progress—change for the better. Some changes are better for some people than for others. Sometimes industrial progress has had devastating consequences for millions of people. The progress represented by the labor movement has often been denounced as detrimental to the progress desired by businessmen (and vice versa).

prosperity—economic “good times” when there is economic growth, business is good, and almost everyone is able to find employment.

protectionism—the utilization of high tariffs to protect industry in one’s own country from competition of industries in other countries.

pure and simple unionism—a form of unionism which focuses on pushing for improved wages, hours, and working conditions at the workplace, tending to accept capitalism as a given and shying away from larger visions of radical social reform or revolutionary change.

quickie—a brief work stoppage in a workplace, initiated by workers to force management to back off from an unpopular policy or to quickly resolve a grievance in the interests of the workers.

race—a concept developed after the 1400s, in large measure to set up hierarchies of “superior” and “inferior” peoples in an age of European expansion and global conquest, and which also had impact on the consciousness and practices of different sectors of the U.S. working class. Often used as a synonym for what are now labeled ethnic groups, race was even more commonly utilized to create a category of “whiteness” through which people with European origins attained certain rights and benefits that set them above those with African, Asian, or Native American (“Indian”) origins. Scientifically, race can be defined as a biological grouping within the human species classified according to specific genetically inherited differences such as skin pigmentation, hair texture and color, body proportions, etc. (or more precisely measurable differences in blood type, amino acid excretions, and enzyme deficiencies). Yet such races are in a continual state of flux, with genes constantly flowing from one gene pool to another, and since all racial groups currently existing are consequently thoroughly mixed, there is significant variation in racial classification systems. Some scientists have identified three races (Mongoloid, Caucasoid, Negroid), others refer to five, yet others referring to more than thirty—some listing over two hundred, and yet others questioning the value of racial categories altogether. Much use of the term “race” is biologically and scientifically meaningless, being an ideological construction (at best loosely related to scientific notions) utilized to explain or justify differences, conflicts and inequalities that are actually rooted in cultural and socioeconomic developments. What places someone in a specific race is often illogical: there are dark-skinned “whites” with darker complexions than light-skinned “blacks”; the child of a black mother and a white father is considered black, yet the child of a white mother and a black father is also considered black; etc. Nonetheless, race has a genuine social meaning, since most people consider themselves (and are considered by others) to be in one or another distinct race, and this is deeply rooted in the historical experience and consciousness of the U.S. working class—creating perhaps the sharpest and most damaging division in the ranks of labor.

racism—negative attitudes, practices, and policies directed at people because of their race or ethnic background.

racketeering—making money through shady or illegal means.

radical—often meaning “extreme,” but more accurately meaning “going to the root” of a problem and favoring far-reaching solutions; often synonymous with someone or something left-wing.

raiding—a common practice among competing unions, in which one union seeks to increase its membership not by organizing non-unionized workers, but at the expense of another union, by persuading employees in a unionized workplace to replace the rival union with one’s own.

rank and file—the membership or social base of an organization, socioeconomic class, or nation, exclusive of its leaders.

real wages—wages expressed in terms of what today’s dollar will buy, often based on the Consumer Price Index. It is possible that you are making more dollars in your paycheck now than was the case five years ago, but that your paycheck now will buy fewer goods—in which case your real wages have decreased.

recession—mild depression or slowdown in economic growth, with rise in unemployment.

red—associated with left-wing views; during the cold war associated with Communism.

red-baiting—seeking to discredit someone or something by charging that they are left-wing or Communistic.

reform—a change designed to bring improvement.

reformer—someone who advocates and works for reforms.

reformist—someone who believes that the ills of society can gradually be eliminated simply through the accumulation of reforms.

replacement worker—polite term for a scab who takes someone else’s job during a strike.

republic—government by elected representatives (posing the question as to who actually elects the representatives—that is, whether the republic is democratic or elitist).

revolutionary—involving a dramatic change in fundamental political and economic power relations. Often this is associated with violent change, although there have been nonviolent revolutionaries.

right-to-work laws—a term used by opponents of unions to establish open-shop laws. The term has nothing to do with guaranteeing anyone the right to a job.

right-wing—having to do with people, groups, ideas, etc—including those labeled conservative—that are in opposition to radical-democratic currents or the orientations of socialists, communists, anarchists, etc.

robber barons—a derogatory term for businessmen who made fortunes in the post–Civil War period, presumably by unethical means; referred to more positively by some as “captains of industry.”

robotics—self-correcting feedback and computer electronics guiding machinery, replacing human workers; similar to automation.

runaway shops—factories and other business enterprises that move away from unionized and higher-wage areas to non-union and low-wage areas.

salary—a form of pay for labor, generally paid monthly or semimonthly, especially to clerical and professional workers (rather than manual workers); it was commonly perceived as reflecting status a step “above” the traditional (blue-collar) working class—although this notion had worn thin by the late twentieth century.

scab—someone who takes someone else’s job during a strike.

secondary boycott—if there is a strike or lockout at one plant and the employer sends out work to another plant, and the workers at the second plant refuse to do that work in solidarity with the striking or locked-out workers, their refusal is a secondary boycott.

seniority—a workers’ length of service with an employer. According to most union contracts, a worker with greater seniority is laid off later and called back to work sooner than a worker with less seniority; often there are other benefits as well, involving the right to be promoted to a better job at a workplace, higher pay rates, more vacation time, etc. The seniority system was developed by unions to eliminate arbitrary penalization of workers (often for union activity) and to promote a system of fairness and relative worker security at the workplace.

service worker—a very elastic term, involving employees (of a variety of skill, status, income levels) in service occupation as opposed to manufacturing or agricultural occupations.

sexism—negative attitudes, practices, and policies directed at people because of their sex or gender (females generally being the direct victims of this).

sit-down strike—a strike in which the workers occupy the factory instead of leaving it, placing greater pressure on the employer because it is consequently impossible to get production going with scab labor, and repressive violence directed against the strikers could damage expensive machinery and other valued property of the employer. A highly effective tactic that was common in the 1930s but which diminished when employers sought to be less intransigent, labor leaders sought to be more respectable, and laws made it more difficult to sustain militant union confrontations.

shop—workplace.

shop steward—a union representative in the workplace whom workers can consult immediately if they face a problem with the employer or management, and who ensures that the union is a living presence in union members’ daily work lives.

skilled worker—a worker needing a significant amount of training and experience (such as a carpenter, an electrician, a tool-and-die maker, etc.).

slavery—a system of forced labor. The laborer is forced to work for someone else (often known as the master) in order to produce enough to sustain both slave and master. In some slave systems the slave has certain rights and can look forward to being set free eventually. Under the system sometimes termed chattel slavery (chattel means movable property) in the U.S. South, which was ended by the Civil War of 1861–1865, the slaves were the permanent property of a master, generally with no more rights than farm animals: they could be bought and sold, used for breeding more slaves, separated from loved ones, “disciplined” through force and violence, abused in multiple ways, or sometimes even killed. Some have referred to the general situation of the working class as wage slavery: workers are forced—if they wish to make a living (purchase what they need to live)—to sell their ability to labor to the employer for a certain number of hours; the employer owns that essential part of their lives, and seeks to control as much of their lives as possible in order to squeeze as much actual labor out of the investment as possible; the worker is not property (only the sold portions of his or her labor-power belong to the employer), but the worker does support himself or herself (and sometimes a family) plus the employer through this forced labor—yet also struggles to secure as much freedom (self-determination, control over one’s own life) as possible.

slowdown—slowing down by workers of the pace of work, and therefore the amount of output—usually used as a tactic to pressure employers to shift away from policies or practices that the workers object to.

social unionism—an approach which involves unions not only being concerned about immediate objectives (improvements in wages, hours, working conditions) but also seeking to reform social conditions in order to better the general society.

socialism—a perspective that the economy should be socially owned (by all in society), democratically controlled, and utilized through humanistic planning to benefit all people. It has sometimes been synonymous with “communism,” but sometimes a distinction has been made between the two—especially since the 1917 Russian revolution. The popular conception of socialism does not as often have the undemocratic connotation that is associated with the Communism of the dictator Stalin and his imitators and successors. There are different currents of socialist thought—some but not all influenced by Marxism, some revolutionary and some reformist.

Social Security—a New Deal reform which involved workers and employers paying a tax to the federal government in order to provide social security payments, a type of pension, to retired employees.

society—system of human organization for large-scale community living that normally furnishes protection, security, and identity for its members. Modern societies generally involve complex economies and political dynamics, and are influenced by divisions based on class.

solidarity—a strong feeling of unity or fellowship (brotherhood and sisterhood) based on common interests flowing from being part of the same group or class.

speedup—a common complaint by workers describing company attempts to speed up the pace of work in order to increase production, generally without an increase in pay.

stool pigeon—someone paid by employers or others to infiltrate a labor organization and report on its activities.

strike—a temporary halt in work by all the workers together, in order to pressure the employer to improve their conditions. A strike is generally run by the union and involves workers picketing at the entrances of their workplace.

sweetheart contract—a contract between a corrupt union and an employer (often negotiated behind the backs of the workers) which brings benefits to employers and union officials but not to the union membership.

sympathy strike—a strike by workers not directly involved in a labor dispute to show solidarity with the initial strikers and increase pressure on their employer. If extended broadly enough, this becomes a general strike.

Taft-Hartley Act—adopted in 1947 to limit the power and eliminate radicalism of unions. It outlaws the closed shop, jurisdictional strikes, secondary boycotts, sympathy strikes; reinstates the injunction to limit other boycotts and strike activity; imposes “cooling-off” periods before strikes can be called; provides for limitations on picketing, prevents unions from directly contributing to electoral campaigns, and requires all union officers to file affidavits that they are not members of the Communist Party. States were allowed to enact anti-union “right to work” laws. Unions were required to submit their constitutions, bylaws, and financial statements to the U.S. Department of Labor. Unions not complying with all of this would be denied the protections of the National Labor Relations Act and the services of the National Labor Relations Board.

tariff—a tax placed on foreign goods in order to make the foreign imports more expensive than similar goods produced inside the country (which are consequently easier to sell). A high tariff policy is called “protectionism.”

technology—tools; branch of knowledge dealing with industrial arts, applied science, engineering, etc. The development of technology increases productivity, cutting down on the amount of labor needed to create a product, at the same time creating more goods for society (sometimes called a greater social surplus) that can be utilized to advance general human development and/or to increase individual wealth.

tenant farmer—also known as a sharecropper who—after the breakup of the slave system on Southern plantations after the Civil War—rented farmland and was compelled to give roughly a third of the crop for the profit of the landowner and at least another third of the crop to pay for provisions, tools, and other necessities.

trade union—generally a synonym for “union,” whether organized along craft or industrial lines. (Sometimes understood more narrowly as referring simply to craft unions.)

unemployment compensation—payments made to jobless workers by the government, funded by a tax paid by the employee to cover such payments.

unfair labor practices—defined by (and prohibited by) the National Labor Relations Act and Taft-Hartley Act as practices of discrimination, coercion, and intimidation by management or unions. Management is prohibited from setting up company unions or using coercive tactics to discourage union organization. Unions are not to force workers to join organizations not of their own choosing.

union—an organization of workers in a workplace or trade or industry which seeks to raise wages, shorten the workday, improve working conditions, establish dignity on the job. The word comes from the Latin word unus, meaning “one.” The union consists of all the union members, and “an injury to one is an injury to all.”

union contract—a written agreement between a union and an employer. It lists wages, hours, conditions of employment, and various rights and responsibilities that have been agreed to.

union label—a stamp or tag on products to show that the work was done by union labor.

union shop—a workplace where every member of the bargaining unit must become a member of the union after a specified amount of time.

unorganized worker—a worker who does not belong to a union.

unskilled worker—a worker who can be trained for a job in a few days or weeks.

wages—a form of pay for labor, often set at an hourly rate (though sometimes by the piece of work done) and generally paid daily or weekly for manual (blue-collar) labor.

wages system—an economic system based on workers selling their ability to work for regular payment (the wage) to an employer who has control over the economy; usually understood to be capitalism.

Wagner Act—the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, generally seen as a pro-labor law that, with government protections and involvement, made it much easier for unions to organize and operate. It was modified by the Taft-Hartley Act which had the opposite effect.

welfare capitalism—associated with paternalistic policies developed by employers especially in the 1920s, designed to provide various company benefits to employees in order to discourage unionization and to develop worker loyalty to the company.

welfare state—a term which gained currency after World War II, generally referring to capitalist countries in which a wide range of social benefits are provided by the government—such as unemployment compensation, social security payments to the elderly and disabled, health insurance, aid to education, low-income housing.

white-collar worker—worker not required to do heavy physical labor, such as office workers, retail clerks, teachers—as opposed to those having factory, farm, and construction jobs.

wildcat strike—a strike of the workers, often spontaneous, which is not authorized by the union.

Wobbly—nickname for a member of the revolutionary union the IWW. One anecdote claims that its origin was with a Chinese immigrant worker who had just joined it and had difficulty pronouncing the letter W, therefore saying that he had just become a member of the “I-Wobbly-Wobbly.”

workers compensation—insurance payments, provided by all states, received when a worker is injured on the job.

working class—includes employed people and their family members whose living is dependent on selling labor-power (the ability to work) to employers for wages or salaries, plus underemployed or unemployed sectors unable to secure such living wages or salaries (therefore dependent on unemployment compensation, welfare benefits, etc.), and those former wage and salary workers who have reached retirement age.

yellow dog contract—a statement workers were forced to sign, as a basis for getting a job, promising that they would not join a union. Sometimes known as an “iron-clad oath.”