Credit for that: As Alfred D. Chandler Jr. wrote in “Management Decentralization: An Historical Analysis,” Business History Review, Vol. 30, No. 2, June 1956: “The fundamental innovations in the major variations of decentralized administrative structures existing in large industrial concerns all came in the 1920s. The first and by far the most significant was that engineered by Irénée and Pierre DuPont in 1921. The two brothers created simultaneously for the DuPont company and for General Motors the organization that is still the model for companies decentralizing their operations along product lines.” Also see Wren and Bedeian, The Evolution of Management Thought, 256. Pushing responsibility: Cordiner, 47. Also see “The Implications of Industrial Decentralization” by Ralph J. Cordiner, General Management Series, No. 134, American Management Association, 1945; “Problems of Management in a Large Decentralized Organization” by Ralph J. Cordiner, American Management Association, 1952; “Scientific Job Design and Development of Professional Managerial and Functional Nomenclature,” Management Consultation Services, General Electric, Feb. 1954, RGGP; Warner, Unwalla, and Trimm, 177. Hundreds upon hundreds: Greenwood, Managerial Decentralization, 22, 58, 40–41. “New arena”: Greenwood, 19. The financial analyst was Edward Currie. Also see Greenwood, 99; Warner, Unwalla, and Trimm, 214. Surpassed: Naisbitt, Megatrends, 12. Also see Saval, 156. In 1959: This was in the book Landmarks of Tomorrow.
“Security, complacency”: Greenwood, 18; O’Boyle, At Any Cost, 51. “Manager’s work”: Cordiner, 75–79.
“Cold fish”: Greenwood, 97. “Napoleonic”: O’Boyle 51. Born in 1900: “Ralph J. Cordiner, Ex-G.E. Head, Dies,” New York Times, Dec. 6, 1973. Private memoir: Shared with the author by Cordiner’s son-in-law, Frederick Lione Jr. “Never forgot”: From a 2012 interview by the author with Lione.
131–132 Came to count: From Cordiner’s private memoir. “Very restive”: From Cordiner’s private memoir. Cordiner headed: This and other biographical details are from Ralph J. Cordiner, Ex-G.E. Head, Dies,” New York Times, Dec. 6, 1973; GE’s corporate profile of Cordiner; Dec. 16, 1950, corporate news release about Cordiner’s election as GE president; and his memoir. He launched: Greenwood, 143. Cordiner studied decentralization at General Motors from 1943 to 1950 before pushing forward with his own plan at GE.
Blue Books: Greenwood, 46–47. A fifth volume, Professional Work in General Electric, was drafted but never published. For more background on the Blue Books, see Tichy and Sherman, Control Your Destiny or Someone Else Will, 55–56; Rothschild, 101–114. “Human happiness”: From Cordiner’s introductory letter in the Blue Books.
From MIT: Biographical details from Zimet and Greenwood, The Evolving Science of Management, 7. “Indefatigable formulator”: Zimet and Greenwood, ix-x. “No longer”: Zimet and Greenwood, 201. “Just happen”: Greenwood, 82. Mold them: Zimet and Greenwood, 207–210. In addition, GE actively encouraged managers to take outside classes at universities and elsewhere. Reading list: “Report on Manager Reading Plan,” Management Consulting Services Division, General Electric, April 1953, RGGP.
“Important activities”: Remarks at Production Services meeting, May 5, 1958, WRP. Surveys indicate: Brindle and Stearns, Facing Up to Management Faddism, 94. Also see Whyte, 111–128; Mills, White Collar, 85–86. Wide range: “Outline of Program for New Supervisors,” Eastman Kodak, circa 1950, TSC. “Dale Carnegie”: “Dale Carnegie Course in Effective Leadership,” General Motors, 1949, SA. Also see “A Few Highlights of the GM Dale Carnegie Course,” SA.
Cordiner poured: “GE’s Talent Machine: The Making of a CEO” by Christopher A. Bartlett and Andrew N. McLean, Harvard Business School case study, revised Nov. 2006. Fifteen-acre: “The Crotonville Story,” Management Development and Business Education Service,” General Electric, Feb. 1965, LBP. Also see “Crotonville: The Origins of Industry’s Best Management Training Institute” by Ronald G. Greenwood, 1979, LBP. Management library: “The Crotonville Story,” Management Development and Business Education Service,” General Electric, Feb. 1965, LBP.
Would go through: “The Crotonville Story,” Management Development and Business Education Service,” General Electric, Feb. 1965, LBP. The Advanced Management Course was halted in 1961, but Crotonville continued to offer other management classes of shorter duration, as well as other seminars and management conferences. The facility remained the focal point of GE’s management education efforts. See Warner, Unwalla, and Trimm, 220–222. Whyte, 119–127, also discusses GE training outside of Crotonville. Backlog: Greenwood, 82. POIM: Zimet and Greenwood, x, 21–22; Evans, 72; 2011 and 2012 interviews by the author with former GE managers Arthur Stern and Jerry Suran. Lem Boulware’s antiunion agenda was also part of the training at Crotonville. Outside experts: Greenwood, 20. “Acid test”: Greenwood, 130–131.
“Tent revival”: 1979 interview with Neumann, Hall of History Biographical and Oral History Collection, SMA. Also see O’Boyle, 224. “Cotton-pickin’ mind”: Greenwood, 42. Phillippe would go on to become GE’s president from 1961 to 1963 and the company’s chairman from 1963 to 1967.
Large surveys: “Changing Employee Values: Deepening Discontent?”by M. R. Cooper, B. S. Morgan, P. M. Foley, and L. B. Kaplan, Harvard Business Review, Jan. 1979. To jump: Whyte, 162–163. Also see Osterman, The Truth About Middle Managers, 23. Cappelli, 66, cites other studies showing that “job hopping between companies was minimal.” “Permanent members”: Heckscher, 4. Also see Osterman, Broken Ladders, 4–5; Osterman, The Truth About Middle Managers, 24; Greenhouse, 76. Nearly 100 percent: “Changing Employee Values: Deepening Discontent?”by M. R. Cooper, B. S. Morgan, P. M. Foley, and L. B. Kaplan, Harvard Business Review, Jan. 1979.
High turnover: Greenwood, 99. One of the biggest jolts to the system was Cordiner’s elimination of administrative assistants (Greenwood, 54–55). New breed: Phillips-Fein, 103; Greenwood, 104–105; Schatz, 236. “The ticket”: Goldin and Katz, 169.
“We performed”: From a 2012 interview by the author with Suran. For more on Suran, see semiconductormuseum.com/Transistors/GE/OralHistories/Suran/Suran_Index.htm “Survival of all”: Whyte, 123. The environment Whyte describes ran counter to Cordiner’s stated intention to enforce “removal for incapacity or poor performance.”
Reams of forms: A slew of these mind-numbing forms and planning documents can be found in RGGP. “In dogma”: May 13, 1960, letter from Hurni to Smiddy, RGGP.
Session C: “GE’s Talent Machine: The Making of a CEO” by Christopher A. Bartlett and Andrew N. McLean, Harvard Business School case study, revised Nov. 2006. Also see Greenwood, 126–128. Some managers questioned how faithfully this system was actually implemented. Also see “ERI—Yardstick of Employee Relations” by Willard V. Merrihue and Raymond A. Katzell, Harvard Business Review, 1955. “Self-motivation”: Greenwood, 130. He is quoting from The Work of a Professional Manager, Book 3 of Professional Management in General Electric. “Competitive environment”: From a 2012 interview by the author with Suran.
Eight result areas: Greenwood, 60–61. “Chips are down”: Greenwood, 108.
Plead guilty: See “Interim Report: The Recent Settlement of Electrical Industry Antitrust Cases,” Dec. 14, 1960, PRP. “Choir practice”: Geis, White-Collar Criminal, 87. “Electrical Conspiracy”: Part 1 ran in the magazine in April 1961; part 2, May 1961. Was fined: Fisse and Braithwaite, The Impact of Publicity on Corporate Offenders, 168; Geis, 85. Also see “Electrical Price Fixing Stirs Inquiry,” CQ Almanac 1961. Fired the employees: Fisse and Braithwaite, 178. “Flagrant disregard”: “Price Fixing at GE?” Time, Jan. 18, 1960. “Lazy, indolent”: “Personal File,” Time, June 16, 1961; Geis, 92. Lay fault: Kale, Inverting the Paradox of Excellence, 247; Geis, 92. “Make their numbers”: O’Boyle, 53. Also see Rothschild, 123–125.
Watershed year: The analysis and information in this paragraph, including the magazine quotes, are from “General Motors’ 1958 Reorganization: Transition Away from the Market” by Thomas L. Powers, Conference on Historical Analysis & Research in Marketing, 1993. Also see Hopper and Hopper, The Puritan Gift, 142–143, 190; Lutz, Car Guys vs. Bean Counters, 14.
“My whole life”: From a 2011 interview by the author with Stern. Was promoted: “IEEE Mourns Loss of 1975 President Arthur Stern,” The Institute, June 1, 2012. Also see “Arthur P. Stern dies at 86; transistor pioneer,” Los Angeles Times, June 12, 2012.
“A silly way”: Wilson, The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, 227. For background on the novel, see Saval, 154, 166–168.
Ticked off: “The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit—As Psychiatrists See Him,” remarks by Ralph T. Collins before the American Management Association, 1956, KHC.
“Excluding completely”: Jan. 4, 1976, letter from Jones to Woodruff, RWP.
“Without tears”: Whyte, 131.
“Are sanguine”: Whyte, 155–156.
“Farm system”: This and all other quotes and information from Riland are from a 2012 interview by the author. The list of the alma maters of those employed by Kodak’s Business and Technical Personnel Department from Jan. 1929–July 1952 can be found in KHC.
“Anything controversial”: Whyte, 122. Also see Saval, 160–162, 167. Also used: Whyte, 173. “Curious inquisitions”: Whyte, 171. Also see Saval, 164–166. “Extremely lucky”: From a 2011 interview by the author with Stern.
“You’re not nuts”: From a 2011 interview by the author with Stern. He accepted: In 1961, Stern left GE for a job with even more responsibility at Martin-Marietta.
Something of a robot: Saval, 159, notes that C. Wright Mills “would call the white-collar class a group of ‘cheerful robots.’”
Worst economic slump: “Measuring the 1957–58 Recession” by Geoffrey H. Moore, The Analysts Journal, Vol. 15, No. 1, Feb. 1959. Also see Glasner, Business Cycles and Depressions, 567. Turned serious: “The Economic Snowdown,” Time, March 31, 1958. Life magazine: “Some Suffering Amid Well-Being,” Life, Jan. 27 1958.
“Relatives and neighbors”: “Good News for Bad,” Time, Feb. 24, 1958. Rate hit: Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey, US Bureau of Labor Statistics. The 7.5 percent is seasonally adjusted. 13 or 14 percent: Economic Report of the President, Jan. 20, 1959. General Electric alone: “Resolution Adopted Unanimously by the IUE-GE Conference Board,” July 19–20, 1958, UE. General Motors: According to notes in UAW, there were 338,000 workers at GM in December 1957 and 310,000 in December 1958. No longer honor: Wooten, 62; “A Method of Increasing the Security of Pension Benefits,” The Journal of Risk and Insurance, Vol. 35, No. 1, March 1968. Wotten, 67, reports: “In October 1959, Studebaker-Packard and the UAW reached a settlement that reduced benefits for retirees to 85 percent of the level prior to the termination. Employees who were eligible to retire when the plan terminated but did not submit pension applications until after September 2, 1958, received a lump-sum payment of about forty-three dollars per year of service. Others got nothing.” Also see Schieber, 139. The workers first hit by Studebaker’s actions were employees of the former Packard Motor Car Co. Eventually, a much bigger group of Studebaker’s hourly workers would see their pension benefits cut (in many cases to zero) when the company shut down its South Bend, Ind., plant in 1963. See Wooten, 73–76; Sass, 183–185; Lowenstein, 29–30; Ferguson and Blackwell, Pensions in Crisis, 3–4; Greenhouse, 78; Hacker, The Divided Welfare State, 80.
A chance for: Glasner, 567. “Wave-like movement”: “Excerpts from Anti-Recession Program of Committee for Economic Development,” New York Times, March 23, 1958. “Is normalcy”: As quoted in “Famous Last Words,” International Union of Electrical Radio and Machine Workers, IUE. McFarland was speaking to the annual Ladies Luncheon at the US Chamber of Commerce. “Automation Depression”: The Nation, editorial, Nov. 29, 1958. Also see Schriftgiesser, 199.
Classical theorists: Woirol, The Technological Unemployment and Structural Unemployment Debates, 1–7. “Upward trends”: Woirol, 5.
Productivity data: Woirol, 8–11. “Upon its hands”: As quoted in Woirol, 10.
Were scarce: Woirol, 17–18. “Real issue”: Woirol, 21.
“New disease”: Keynes’s essay can be found at econ.yale.edu/smith/econ116a/keynes1.pdf. It is cited in Brynjolfsson and McAfee, Race Against the Machine, 33; Brynjolfsson and McAfee, The Second Machine Age, 174. Also see “Automation Anxiety” by Daniel Akst, The Wilson Quarterly, Summer 2013. Impose a levy: Woirol, 21. Once worked: Biographical information on Herzel can be found at rogallery.com/Herzel_Paul/herzel-biography.html. 1935 print: It is part of the collection at the Wolfsonian–Florida International University museum, library, and research center in Miami. Divergent as ever: Woirol, 50.
On hold: Woirol, 54. Revived again: Ford, The Lights in the Tunnel, 222, notes that Alan Turing initiated the field of artificial intelligence with his 1950 paper “Computing Machinery and Intelligence.” Also see “Automation: A New Dimension to Old Problems” by George P. Shultz and George B. Baldwin, Annals of American Economics, 1955; “The Impact of Automation on Production and Employment” by James B. Carey, Religion and Labor Foundation, Oct. 1957, RHGP. ENIAC: “Birth of the Computer,” Computer History Museum; “The Science and Technology of World War II” by Dr. David Mindell, University of North Carolina School of Education, as provided by the National Museum of World War II. “Rebuild scientific affairs”: “Electronic Computer Flashes Answers, May Speed Engineering,” New York Times, Feb. 15, 1946.
“Second industrial revolution”: Wiener, The Human Use of Human Beings, 151. “Outsmarted”: “Automation Gets Share of Blame for Continued High Unemployment in Wake of Business Recovery,” Toledo Blade, March 29, 1959. “A ghost”: “Rebellion in the Factory,” The Nation, Oct. 21, 1961. “Horses felt”: As quoted by James B. Carey in a May 1, 1961, address at City College of New York, IUE. “Unmitigated Cruelty”: Markoff, Machines of Loving Grace, 72; Ford, Rise of the Robots, 32.
“Incredibly vigorous”: Proceedings from Congress of American Industry, New York, Dec. 1–3, 1954, KC. “The prophet”: “John Diebold, 79, a Visionary of the Computer Age, Dies,” New York Times, Dec. 27, 2005. To its payroll: “Facing the Future With Confidence,” an address by GM President Harlow H. Curtice at the GM Motorama, New York, Jan. 1955, UAW. “Completely refutes”: Statement by GM vice president Louis G. Seaton before the US Senate Special Committee on Unemployment Problems, Detroit, Nov. 12, 1959, UAW. “As I know”: “Comment on Automation,” May 1957, KHC.
IBM 701: Testimony by Ralph J. Cordiner before the Joint Congressional Committee on the Economic Report, Subcommittee on Economic Stabilization, Oct. 26, 1955. Also see “The IBM 701 Defense Calculator,” Columbia University Computing History (columbia.edu/cu/computinghistory/701.html). First company: “GE’s Appliance Park Still an IT Innovator,” Computerworld, Jan. 29, 2001. To handle: “First-Hand: The First Commercial Computer Application at General Electric” by Burton Grad, IEEE Global History Network, Dec. 2006. Regarding the Remington Rand UNIVAC, also see Saval, 157–158; Cortada, The Digital Hand, 25. “Is drudgery”: Wall Street Journal, April 20, 1954. The headline of the ad was “How smart can machines be?”
Discounted the danger: Frank, Buy American, 102–114. “Mistaken peddlers”: Frank, 114.
“Automate or die”: “Automate or Die on the Competitive Vine,” General Electric Issue-Grams, circa 1960, LBP. Since 1953: Flamm, Mismanaged Trade?, 57. “To brainwash”: “The Truth About GE-Controlled Toshiba,” issued by Local 1506 IUE-AFL-CIO, UE.
“Urgently needed”: Statement by Ralph J. Cordiner to the Joint Congressional Committee on the Economic Report, Subcommittee on Automation and Energy Resources,” July 25, 1960. Also see “Employment and Unemployment in the U.S. Economy, in General Electric,” Relations Services, General Electric, 1960, KC. Cordiner was, in a way, promoting the latest in economic thought. As Ford (The Lights in the Tunnel, 135) notes: “The idea that long-term economic growth is, to a large extent, the result of advancing technology was formalized by economist Robert Solow in 1956.” For a more nuanced view, see “What Economists Get Wrong About Science and Technology” by Konstantin Kakaes, Slate, May 17, 2012. “Cheering it on”: “Automation: The Impact of Technological Change” by Yale Brozen, American Enterprise Institute, 1963. For another optimistic assessment, see “The Promise of Automation” by Peter F. Drucker, Harper’s, April 1955.
“Employees stranded”: “The Origins of the Manpower Development and Training Act of 1962” by Gladys Roth Kremen, US Department of Labor, 1974. “Major factor”: “Automation Anxiety” by Daniel Akst, The Wilson Quarterly, Summer 2013. Also see Rifkin, The End of Work, 81–83. “Automation and Job Loss: The Fears of 1964,” Conversable Economist, Dec. 1, 2014. Despite these concerns, the commission overall “was optimistic about the impact of technological change on the economy,” writes Woirol, 113. Also see Ford, Rise of the Robots, 32–33; Markoff, 73–74.
“You can’t stop”: Lichtenstein, Walter Reuther, 290. Also see Serrin, 229–231; Markoff, 73. “Near-paradise”: May 1, 1961, address at City College of New York, IUE.
“More and more”: Statement by Walter Reuther before the US Senate Special Committee on Unemployment Problems, Detroit, Nov. 12, 1959, UAW. They called: See Carey’s May 1, 1961, address at City College of New York, IUE; statement by Walter Reuther before the US Senate Subcommittee on Employment and Manpower, May 22, 1963, UAW.
147–148 “Cushion the effect”: “How Does Kodak Handle Automation and the Displaced Worker,” undated typescript, KHC. Some 30,000: “The Robot Invasion” by Rick Wartzman, The American Prospect, Sept./Oct. 2013. “To stabilize”: “General Electric’s Plan for Financing Retraining” by Earl S. Willis, Management Record, April 1962. The sentence about “maximizing employment security” comes from an earlier part of the article. Also quoted in Greenhouse, 78; Fraser, White-Collar Sweatshop, 100.
Computer chip: The inventor was Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments. See “The History of the Integrated Circuit” (nobelprize.org/educational/physics/integrated_circuit/history/).
“Do you suppose”: Vonnegut, Player Piano, 15.
Building 49: Shields, And So It Goes, 117. “Got their dignity”: “Playboy Interview: Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.,” Playboy, July 1973. Also quoted, in part, in Shields, 117. Also see Ford, Rise of the Robots, 32.
“Surest way”: “Labor’s Pay Raises Blamed in Slump,” New York Times, May 21, 1958.
“Desperate and despicable”: “Reaction’s Recession” by James B. Carey, an address to IUE-AFL-CIO Employment Security Conference, Washington, June 13–14, 1958, IUE.
“Hard line”: Brenner, The Economics of Global Turbulence, 61–63. Also see Mizruchi, 100. “To the hilt”: “Union Response to the Hard Line” by Jack Barbash, Industrial Relations, Vol. 1, No. 1, Oct. 1961.
“Lost our way”: May 5, 1954, letter from Scanlon to Meyer Bernstein, JSP. “Soft and flabby”: Lichtenstein, Walter Reuther, 368. Reuther made these remarks at the UAW’s 1962 convention.
Aggressively publicized: Fones-Wolf, 267; Metzgar, 90. “Arrogance and bossism”: Gross, Broken Promise, 138. “Economic power”: “Unions’ Economic Power Is Seen as a Contribution to Inflation,” New York Times, July 23, 1958. The CED’s report, “Defense Against Inflation,” is also referenced by Mizruchi, 99. Also see “Union Powers and Union Functions: Toward a Better Balance,” Committee for Economic Development, March 1964.
“Dominant position”: “Monopoly Power as Exercised by Labor Unions,” Study Group on Monopoly Power as Exercised by Labor Unions, National Association of Manufacturers, 1957. Wolman’s path: Biographical details from “Dr. Leo Wolman, Economist, Dies,” New York Times, Oct. 3, 1961. Also see Gross, The Making of the National Labor Relations Board, 17; “In Memoriam: Leo Wolman, 1890–1961,” Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 77, No. 3, Sept., 1962; Schlesinger, The Coming of the New Deal, 146.
“Long ago erased”: “Our Mounting Union Problem,” an address by Lemuel R. Boulware to the Southwest Electric Conference, Chandler, Ariz., March 30–April 1, 1958, LBP. GE had been railing against “compulsory unionism” since at least 1952.
With its provision: The relevant section of the Taft-Hartley Act is 14(b). See “Right-to-Work Laws,” West’s Encyclopedia of American Law, Edition 2, 2008. Potent weapon: “Fortress Unionism” by Rich Yeselson, Democracy, Summer 2013. Eighteen states: “Right-to-Work Laws: The Results Do Not Justify the Trouble,” Time, Nov. 24, 1958. Nearly all: Within a year of Taft-Hartley’s passage, seven of the thirteen southern states had passed right-to-work laws, notes Cherney, Issel, and Taylor, American Labor and the Cold War, 125. Six other states: “Right to Work in Practice” by Frederic Meyers, The Fund for the Republic, 1959. “Disinterested bystander”: Address by Ralph J. Cordiner before the Dallas Citizens’ Council, Oct. 11, 1957. “Morally wrong”: The General Electric Monogram, Oct. 15, 1958, PRP. Also see “What We Believe About Unionism,” GE Public & Employee Relations News, Nov. 14, 1958, ILIR; “A Report to Management: Compulsory Unionism,” GE Employee Relations News Letter, April 5, 1963, ILIR. “Should fit”: July 27, 1956, memo from L. R. Boulware, given to the author by the family of former GE executive J. Stanford Smith.
“Exploit workers”: “Labor Standards Are Lower in Right-to-Work States,” American Federationist, AFL-CIO, March 1958. “Sweatshop days”: “District No. 3 Adopts Resolution on Right to Work Legislation,” Local 301 News, IUE AFL-CIO, Schenectady, N.Y., May 2, 1958. Matter of fairness: “The ‘Right to Work’ Controversy” by Gerald J. Skibbins and Caroline S. Weymar, Harvard Business Review, July/August 1966.
“Right-wing”: See “Facts About The National Right to Work Committee,” Group Research Inc., Dec. 13, 1962, Institute for Research on Labor and Employment Library, UC Berkeley. The National Right to Work Committee’s papers are archived at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. Unions outspent: “Right-to-Work Laws—Symbols or Substance?” by James W. Kuhn, Industrial and Labor Relations Review, Vol. 14, No. 4, July 1961. “Bitter and vindictive”: “Organized Labor in the Political Process: A Case Study of the Right-to-Work Campaign in Ohio,” Labor History, Winter 1963. Only Kansas: “Union Security and the Taft-Hartley Act” by Erwin S. Mayer, Duke Law Journal, Autumn 1961.
“Our grandchildren”: Nov. 18, 1958, memo from the BURR Agency to United Organized Labor of Ohio, UAW. “Just the opposite”: “Notes for Statement on Right-to-Work,” Nov. 10, 1958, LBP. Also see Fones-Wolf, 266.
“General attitude”: “Guide to Making a Business Climate Appraisal,” Community and Business Relations Service, General Electric, April 1959, LBP. Eleven plants: “GE Builds N.C. Plant,” IUE-CIO News, Jan. 3, 1955. Also see Rothschild, 117. Moving away: Schatz, 130, 233–235. Train tour: April 18, 1950, memo regarding the trip in RWP; other material related to the trip can be found in PRP. Also see Allen, Secret Formula, 290. “Free enterprise”: “GE Heads Eye Plant, See Georgia at Best,” Atlanta Constitution, April 28, 1950. Racist attacks: “Operation Dixie, the Red Scare, and the Defeat of Southern Labor Organizing” by Michel K. Honey in Cherny, Issel, and Taylor. Thwarting: Marshall, Labor in the South, 246–269; Cobb, Industrialization and Southern Society, 89–98. Also see Moody, 39. The numbers: “Comparison of GE Wage Rates: Southern-Northern Plants,” IUE.
Transferring work: Bluestone and Bluestone, Negotiating the Future, 72–73. Cobb, 90; French, U.S. Economic History Since 1945, 102. Also see Rosenfeld, 19; Uchitelle, 39–40. Still had: Boulware, 150. “Loosely made”: “Social Responsibilities of the Businessman,” an address by Ralph J. Cordiner to the Harvard Business School Club of New York, May 18, 1959, LBP.
“Scratched the surface”: Excerpts from Vinson’s remarks were included in a series of newspaper ads taken out by the Electrical Workers union in GE factory towns in the Northeast—e.g., “GE is Planning a Depression for Pittsfield,” IUE. “Depression”: IUE news release, July 22, 1954, IUE. New investments: Aug. 17, 1954, letter from GE’s Virgil Day to IUE President James B. Carey, IUE. “Getting worse”: Typed notes, Sept. 12, 1956, LBP.
Nearly 34 percent: The precise figure for the fraction of private-sectors workers unionized in 1958 was 33.9 percent; the all-time high, reached in 1953, was 35.7 percent, according to Troy and Sheflin, Union Sourcebook, Appendix A, Historical Statistics, 1897–1983. Landslide: The Democrats picked up forty-eight seats in the House and a record thirteen in the Senate. See Lichtenstein, Walter Reuther, 349. “No fleeting fad”: Lichtenstein, Walter Reuther, 350. “Management offensive”: Davis, Prisoners of the American Dream, 121–124. Quoted, as well, in Metzgar, 55. Also see Stebenne, Arthur Goldberg, 194–203. Losers abounded: Brenner, 62; Lichtenstein, Walter Reuther, 350. Weakest set: Lichtenstein, 296, notes that in 1958, the UAW “had been drawn into a subtle game of concession bargaining.” Also see “Peace at a Sound Price,” Time, Sept. 29, 1958. No real gains: Metzgar, 85, sees the 1959 steel strike as a “dramatic and decisive” union victory. But “many steel historians… have come to label the 1959 strike as a ‘watershed’ in the eventual decline of the American steel industry” (Brenner, Day, and Ness, 369). Stebenne, 220, writes: “Also suffering were the rank and file, many of whom lost their life savings during the strike and saw the union coffers their contributions had filled, drain dramatically. Although the union intervened with banks to prevent foreclosures on the membership’s homes, many workers went into debt to survive. Some would spend years recovering what they had lost, and quite a few local unions faced similar problems.” 60 percent: “Future of Private-Sector Unionism in the United States” by Seymour Martin Lipset and Ivan Katchanovski, Journal of Labor Research, Vol. 22, No. 2, Spring 2001. Shop floor: “The Shift Power Balance in the Plant” by George Strauss, Industrial Relations, Vol. 1, No. 3, May 1962.
Series of actions: “The Economy: Action Now,” Time, March 17, 1958; Schriftgiesser, 193. Did its part: “The 1957–1958 Recession: Recent or Current?” Monthly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, Aug. 1958. 20 percent cut: Schriftgiesser, 194–197; “Income Levy of 20% Proposed,” New York Times, March 23, 1958. “Better salesmanship”: “Transcript of President’s News Conference on Foreign and Domestic Issues,” New York Times, April 24, 1958; Schriftgiesser, 196. Also see “Advertising: Auto Men ‘Hollering’ for Sales,” New York Times, April 9, 1958.
Supermarket owner: All of the examples in this paragraph are from “The Hard Sell vs. Hard Times,” Life, April 14, 1958.
“Swift and sure”: Report of the 1958 General Electric Annual Meeting, PRP. Also see “GE’s Chairman Is Now the Boss,” Business Week, Apr. 26, 1958.
Called upon: “What General Electric Is Doing to Accelerate the Upturn in Business,” an address by Ralph J. Cordiner to the American Management Association’s Economic Mobilization Conference, May 20, 1958, LBP.
Last long: “The Three Recessions: Score Card Shows 1958’s Was Shortest,” Time, Aug. 4, 1958. Eight months: “U.S. Business Cycle Expansions and Contractions,” National Bureau of Economic Research. Stock market: The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose nearly 34 percent in 1958. “Was blessed”: “Business in 1958,” Time, Dec. 29, 1958. “Welfare state”: Harrington, Life in the Crystal Palace, 37. Also quoted, in part, in Saval, 169.
“Arrives a day”: Harrington, Life in the Crystal Palace, 23. Also quoted in Saval, 155.
Became a riot: All details on the riot are from “Time Arc of Rochester’s 1964 Riots,” Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, July 19, 2014; “Rochester Riot Timeline,” Independent Television Service; “July ’64,” California Newsreel (newsreel.org/transcripts/july64.htm); “‘Some Boy Causing Fuss’ First Warning Of Trouble in Rochester Riot Area,” Associated Press, July 28, 1964; “New Rioting in Rochester,” Chicago Tribune, July 26, 1964. Temperature: Historical data from Weather Underground. The music: Selections drawn from the “Hot 100” for the week of July 25, 1964, Billboard.
“Bull” Connor: Schlesinger, The Cycles of American History, 410. Ratcheted up: See “July ’64,” California Newsreel (newsreel.org/transcripts/july64.htm).
In the end: Figures from “1964 Riots Revisited: 3 Days That Shook Rochester,” Rochester Demoract and Chronicle, July 19, 2014.
Would witness: Rucker and Upton, Encyclopedia of American Race Riots, lxii–lxiii. The New York City (Harlem) riot had broken out just days before the one in Rochester. “So good”: This and the next quotation are from “Kodak, FIGHT, and the Destination of Civil Rights in Rochester, New York: 1966–1967” by R.D.G. Wadhwani, The Historian, 1997. Also see, Horwitt, Let Them Call Me Rebel, 453–454.
Frederick Douglass: “July ’64,” California Newsreel (newsreel.org/transcripts/july64.htm); RBFS; Horwitt, 453–454. Six-decade-long: Wilkerson, The Warmth of Other Suns, 9–11. 1950 to 1960: Independent Television Service (pbs.org/independentlens/july64/city.html); Horwitt, 454. Mirroring trends: Ginzberg, Business Leadership and the Negro Crisis, 7. Substandard housing: Horwitt, 454–455. Unemployment rate: “Kodak, FIGHT, and the Destination of Civil Rights in Rochester, New York: 1966–1967” by R.D.G. Wadhwani, The Historian, 1997. “Kodak dollar”: Wadhwani, “Kodak, FIGHT, and the Destination of Civil Rights in Rochester, New York: 1966–1967.”
Had tripled: Delton, 33. White-collar jobs: Delton, 40. Plans for Progress: Dobbin, Inventing Equal Opportunity, 43–49. For more, see Delton, 177–191; Reed, The Diversity Index, 69–83. Ten times: Dobbin, 49.
“Have outstripped”: From Kenneth B. Clark’s essay, “The Crisis: Attitudes and Behavior,” in Ginzberg, 24. “Not recovered”: “Equal Opportunity and Equal Pay” by Herbert R. Northrup, Management Personnel Quarterly, Fall 1964. Were managers: Aronowitz, False Promises, 177. “White Male Wanted”: Reed, 101. Small businesses: As noted in “The Responsibilities of Business to Minority Enterprise” by General Motors Chairman James M. Roche at the New York Chamber of Commerce, May 7, 1970, UAW.
On the books: “Demolition Means Progress: Race, Class, and the Deconstruction of the American Dream in Flint, Michigan,” a doctoral dissertation by Andrew R. Highsmith, University of Michigan, 2009. The first provision covering racial discrimination in a union contract was negotiated between GM and the UAW in 1961 (Dobbin, 92). Worst jobs: Serrin, 15, 234–235. The 1940s: See Lichtenstein, Walter Reuther, 209. Large numbers: In Detroit, the heart of the industry, blacks made up 4 percent of the auto workforce at the start of World War II; by 1960, that figure had climbed to 16 percent (Sugrue, The Origins of the Urban Crisis, 147). Also see Halpern, 46. “In writing”: Highsmith dissertation. The commission’s finding came in 1966. “To abide”: This was in 1957. Lichtenstein, Walter Reuther, 373; also quoted in Zieger, For Jobs and Freedom, 140. “Hireable blacks”: Wright, On a Clear Day You Can See General Motors, 275. Not one black: Hill and Jones, Race in America, 286.
Individual managers: Sugrue, 148. “Stoner’s Society”: “Demolition Means Progress: Race, Class, and the Deconstruction of the American Dream in Flint, Michigan,” a doctoral dissertation by Andrew R. Highsmith, University of Michigan, 2009.
Organized protests: “Demolition Means Progress: Race, Class, and the Deconstruction of the American Dream in Flint, Michigan,” a doctoral dissertation by Andrew R. Highsmith, University of Michigan, 2009. Also see “N.A.A.C.P. Plans a GM Job Drive,” New York Times, April 9, 1964. Forty-two cities: Hill and Jones, 286. “We will show”: Darden, Hill, Thomas, and Thomas, Detroit: Race and Uneven Development, 71. A statement: Miller, The Postwar Struggle for Civil Rights, 101.
Long championed: See Lichtenstein, Walter Reuther, 370. “Our own freedom”: Excerpts of Reuther’s remarks, Aug. 28, 1963, The King Center. For an in-depth account of the role that Reuther played in organizing the march, see Boyle, The UAW and the Heyday of American Liberalism, 176–180.
Had set up: Halpern, 34, 45–46; Lichtenstein, Walter Reuther, 211. Slow to appoint: Lichtenstein, Walter Reuther, 373–381. The Trade Union Leadership Council, a black protest movement within the UAW itself, was formed in 1957. Also see Serrin, 150–152; Hill and Jones, 277–279. “No interest”: “Demolition Means Progress: Race, Class, and the Deconstruction of the American Dream in Flint, Michigan,” a doctoral dissertation by Andrew R. Highsmith, University of Michigan, 2009. This complaint came in 1968. Systematically kept: Sugrue, 161. A threat: Zieger, 158; “The Long Exception: Rethinking the Place of the New Deal in American History” by Jefferson Cowie and Nick Salvatore, International Labor and Working-Class History, Fall 2008. “Who dominated”: Zieger, 141.
Held fewer: Widick, Auto Work and Its Discontents, 56–57; Sugrue, 157. Personally invested: From a 2011 interview with Roche’s children, Jim Roche and Joan Quinlan; Serrin, 255; “GM Helping Suppliers Improve Standards: Roche,” Jet, Oct. 28, 1971. Leon Sullivan: Zweigenhaft and Domhoff, Diversity in the Power Elite, 97–99; “GM Makes Bold Move to Help Blacks Gain Economic Power,” Jet, Feb. 25, 1971. “National scale”: “Job Bias Charged to Four Companies and Major Unions,” New York Times, Sept. 18, 1973. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission levied charges of job discrimination against GM and the others not only on the basis of race, but also gender and national origin.
Find itself charged: Also charged by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in the same action were Ford and Sears. As early as: Purcell and Mulvey, The Negro in the Electrical Manufacturing Industry, 31; Reed, 114; Northrup and Rowan, The Negro and Employment Opportunity, 155; “Equal Opportunity: A Long-Standing, Continuing Commitment in General Electric,” Community and Government Relations Bulletin, General Electric, April 17, 1964. Had chaired: The Commission’s report “To Secure These Rights,” can be found at trumanlibrary.org/civilrights/srights1.htm. Also see “Deeds v. Ideals,” Time, Nov. 10, 1947. Pledge its support: Dobbin, 84. Although GE touted its support for the initiative, Reed (114) notes that the company never formally signed on, thereby failing to agree to any of the affirmative action initiatives that other Plans for Progress participants did. Fred Borch: “Johnson Appoints Borch to Civil Rights Committee,” Employee Relations News, General Electric, July 13, 1964. The panel was the National Citizens Committee for Community Relations. “Positions of responsibility”: “Equal Opportunity: A Long-Standing, Continuing Commitment in General Electric,” Community and Government Relations Bulletin, General Electric, April 17, 1964. “Dragged grudgingly”: See vice president Virgil Day’s essay, “Progress in Equal Opportunity at General Electric,” in Northrup and Rowan, 156.
The stories: “At Work in Industry Today,” Management Development and Employee Relations Services, General Electric, 1964. 60,000 copies: Northrup and Rowan, 162. Less than 1 percent: Reed, 182. This was as of Dec. 1962.
Special tune: May 24, 1937, memorandum from DeSales Harrison to Perry Bechtel, RWP.
Firm stand: Allen, Secret Formula, 283. For a harsher portrait of how Woodruff reacted to violence against blacks at Ichauway, see Pendergrast, 279. Donating money: July 10, 1945 letter from Ralph Hayes to Woodruff, RWP. To raise: Jan. 6, 1959, letter from Woodruff to Bishop Arthur J. Moore, RWP. Tuskegee Institute: RWP; Allen, Secret Formula, 286. A tour: Nov. 7, 1952 letter from Harrison Jones to Ivan Allen Jr., RWP. Also see “Executives Tour 6 Negro Colleges,” New York Times, Nov. 22, 1952; Allen, Secret Formula, 287. “Most significant”: Nov. 22, 1952, letter from Benjamin Mays to Woodruff, RWP.
“Chimpanzee”: Pendergrast, 267. Backing for governor: This was all part of a deal in which Talmadge would support a general sales tax instead of a tax aimed specifically at soft drinks, according to Allen, Secret Formula, 314–316. Also see Capparell, The Real Pepsi Challenge, 168–173. “Klan-loving Hummon”: “A Defeated Herman Talmadge and the Black Vote,” Southern Changes, Vol. 3, No. 1, 1980. “God advocates”: “Herman Talmadge, Georgia Senator and Governor, Dies at 88,” New York Times, March 22, 2002. “Little disgusted”: “Georgia: Pick the Winning Side,” Time, June 26, 1950. Also quoted in Capparell, 169.
A big lead: Capparell, 116, 134; Allen, Secret Formula, 285–286. Underserved market: Pendergrast, 266. Began to advertise: This was under the leadership of pioneering African-American ad man Moss Kendrix. See “The Company that Taught the World to Sing: Coca-Cola, Globalization, and the Cultural Politics of Branding in the Twentieth Century,” a doctoral dissertation by Laura A. Hymson, University of Michigan, 2011. Also see Capparell, 227. Star athletes: Pendergrast, 266. As Hymson details in her dissertation, Jackie Robinson was the centerpiece of Coke’s initial advertising efforts in the black community. Did not hire: Hays, The Real Thing, 198; Allen, Secret Formula, 285.
New York: A protest in 1950 was organized by the Harlem-based National Fair Play Committee. See Capparell, 187–188; “The Company that Taught the World to Sing: Coca-Cola, Globalization, and the Cultural Politics of Branding in the Twentieth Century,” a doctoral dissertation by Laura A. Hymson, University of Michigan, 2011. Omaha: Capparell, 188. Champaign: “Coca-Cola Official Promises to Hire Negroes,” Jet, Oct. 5, 1961. Atlanta: Atlanta Ministers Boycott Coca-Cola,” Southern Christian Leadership Conference Newsletter, Sept. 1963; Pendergrast, 280. Chicago: Operation Breadbasket, a project of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, negotiated thirty new and upgraded jobs for blacks from the Coca-Cola Bottling Company of Chicago in August 1966. See the news release from The King Center: thekingcenter.org/archive/document/operation-breadbasket-0. “Manual or menial”: The group was called the Negro Ministers of Atlanta. See Atlanta Ministers Boycott Coca-Cola,” Southern Christian Leadership Conference Newsletter, Sept. 1963. Pave the way: Allen, Secret Formula, 337; Hays, 198. “That is reviled”: McWhorter, Carry Me Home, 249. “Tell your neighbors”: From King’s “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech, delivered in Memphis on April 3, 1968. A transcript is available at The King Center. King would also call for blacks to stop using Sealtest milk and Wonder Bread, among other products and services. He was assassinated the next day, April 4.
Sat next to: Branch, Pillar of Fire, 405.
“Created equal”: Johnson’s radio and television remarks upon signing the Civil Rights Act, July 2, 1964, LBJ Presidential Library.
Prohibited discrimination: “The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission,” National Archives and Records Administration.
“Close the springs”: Johnson’s radio and television remarks upon signing the Civil Rights Act, July 2, 1964, LBJ Presidential Library. First black: “Kenneth Clark, Who Fought Segregation, Dies,” New York Times, May 2, 2005. “The frustration”: Clark’s essay in Ginzberg, 26.
Lay the groundwork: Kenneth Clark, Who Fought Segregation, Dies,” New York Times, May 2, 2005. “Business should accept”: Clark’s essay in Ginzberg, 31–32.
“Concerted effort”: Delton, 36–37.
Tried to entice: Sethi, Business Corporations and the Black Man, 19–20; Horwitt, 456; “Kodak, FIGHT, and the Destination of Civil Rights in Rochester, New York: 1966–1967” by R.D.G. Wadhwani, The Historian, 1997.
Born in: Horwitt, 5–6. “Saul Alinsky, 63, Poverty Fighter and Social Organizer Is Dead,” New York Times, June 13, 1972. Capone’s men: Horwitt, 20–22. “The Agitator” by Ryan Lizza, The New Republic, March 19, 2007. Also see “Playboy Interview: Saul Alinsky,” Playboy, March 1972. Great fodder: Horwitt, 3–4. Alinsky worked: Horwitt, 23–35, “Saul Alinsky, 63, Poverty Fighter and Social Organizer Is Dead,” New York Times, June 13, 1972; “Playboy Interview: Saul Alinsky,” Playboy, March 1972. Allied himself: Horwitt, 59. Grew broader: Horwitt, 68.
“Wanted to try”: “Playboy Interview: Saul Alinsky,” Playboy, March 1972.
“Rubbing raw”: “Saul Alinsky, 63, Poverty Fighter and Social Organizer Is Dead,” New York Times, June 13, 1972. Also see Horwitt, 458. Trained Barack Obama: See “Obama Has a Calm, Disciplined Approach to Challenges,” National Journal, Oct. 27, 2008. Undergraduate thesis: “For Clinton and Obama, a Common Ideological Touchstone,” Washington Post, March 25, 2007. “Faithfully reflect”: As quoted in the introduction to “Playboy Interview: Saul Alinsky,” Playboy, March 1972. “Jolly good fun”: As quoted in the introduction to “Playboy Interview: Saul Alinsky,” Playboy, March 1972. This was in response to the publication of Alinsky’s 1971 book, Rules for Radicals. “Critics are right”: “Playboy Interview: Saul Alinsky,” Playboy, March 1972.
Expanded his work: “Playboy Interview: Saul Alinsky,” Playboy, March 1972. New York City: Horwitt, 280–302. California: Horwitt, 222–235. Woodlawn: Horwitt, 390–449. “Do without hiring”: Horwitt, 458. Two-year contract: Horwitt, 457; Sethi, 20. “Antiquated paternalism”: Horwitt, 461–462.
Long list: Horwitt, 466. Xerox: Horwitt, 488–489.
“Hold discussions”: “Nondiscrimination in Employment,” Kodak Management Letter, June 28, 1962, KHC. Also see Sethi, 24. “Many peanuts”: Dobbin, 59. “Say it blatant”: 2008 interview with Ingram, RBFS. About 600: “Scientist With a Cause,” Ebony, December 1969. 33,000: “Kodak to Pay Dividend Tuesday,” The Daily Record of Rochester, N.Y., March 13, 1964.
Florence: All details are from Horwitt, 464. Walked into: Sethi, 26–27; “Kodak, FIGHT, and the Destination of Civil Rights in Rochester, New York: 1966–1967” by R.D.G. Wadhwani, The Historian, 1997. “Only mass based”: Wadhwani, “Kodak, FIGHT, and the Destination of Civil Rights in Rochester, New York: 1966–1967.” Also see Sethi, 27.
“Arbitrary demand”: “Kodak, FIGHT, and the Destination of Civil Rights in Rochester, New York: 1966–1967” by R.D.G. Wadhwani, The Historian, 1997. “Aren’t something”: Sethi, 27. “Tell us”: Horwitt, 490. Stopped attending: Sethi, 29–30. The two sides also exchanged letters through this period in which they talked right past each other. Correspondence found in KHC; FFP. “No basis”: Sethi, 29.
Kodak announced: Sethi, 30; Horwitt, 490; “Kodak, FIGHT, and the Destination of Civil Rights in Rochester, New York: 1966–1967” by R.D.G. Wadhwani, The Historian, 1997. Also see Oct. 22, 1966 corporate news release, KHC; FFP. “A fraud”: “FIGHT Vows New Push for Kodak Jobs,” Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, Oct. 26, 1966. “Instamatic jobs”: Transcript of remarks on WORK-TV, Oct. 26, 1966, KHC. Also quoted in part in Sethi, 30. “One of the crummiest”: Transcript of remarks on WORK-TV, Oct. 26, 1966, KHC.
Taking the brunt: “Kodak, FIGHT, and the Destination of Civil Rights in Rochester, New York: 1966–1967” by R.D.G. Wadhwani, The Historian, 1997; Sethi, 30. John Mulder: Sethi, 31; Horwitt, 490–491. Led by managers: Sethi, 31. Reached a deal: Sethi, 31–32; Horwitt, 491; Wadhwani, “Kodak, FIGHT, and the Destination of Civil Rights in Rochester, New York: 1966–1967.”
“Vision”: “Kodak, FIGHT, and the Destination of Civil Rights in Rochester, New York: 1966–1967” by R.D.G. Wadhwani, The Historian, 1997. “Hell he has”: Sethi, 33. “Into the future”: Sethi, 33. “Faint odor”: Sethi, 33. Also see Horwitt, 492.
“They’ve broken”: “The Fight That Swirls Around Eastman Kodak,” Business Week, April 29, 1967. Also quoted in Sethi, 33. “No good”: “Kodak, FIGHT, and the Destination of Civil Rights in Rochester, New York: 1966–1967” by R.D.G. Wadhwani, The Historian, 1997. “Sincerely regrets”: Sethi, 34.
“A sham”: Sethi, 37. “Meetings about meetings”: Horwitt, 494; Sethi, 37; “Kodak, FIGHT, and the Destination of Civil Rights in Rochester, New York: 1966–1967” by R.D.G. Wadhwani, The Historian, 1997. “At the doorstep”: Memo from Florence to Kodak president Louis Eilers, FFP. Also quoted in Horwitt, 495.
“Color film”: Horwitt, 493. Already plotting: Sethi, 38.
“Other is men”: Oct. 1957 speech by Talley to the overseas vice presidents of the Coca-Cola Export Corporation, RWP. “Many young men”: Undated brochure found in KHC. Less than 20 percent: Reed, 185, notes that just 16 percent of IBM’s employees were female in 1969. At Pepsi, it was 14 percent. “Can you tell me”: Kessler-Harris, In Pursuit of Equity, 189.
To resign: Kessler-Harris, In Pursuit of Equity, 28; Blackwelder, Electric City, 153. PYM List: As described in an Aug. 1, 1968, letter from Phil Reed to Everett Case, PRP. Also see Nye, Image Worlds: Corporate Identities at General Electric, 96. “Our theory”: Kessler-Harris, In Pursuit of Equity, 29. Were stigmatized: “The Quiet Revolution That Transformed Women’s Employment, Education, and Family” by Claudia Goldin, National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper No. 11953, Jan. 2006.
“Man-run company”: Kessler-Harris, In Pursuit of Equity, 29. “Respectable”: “The Quiet Revolution That Transformed Women’s Employment, Education, and Family” by Claudia Goldin, National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper No. 11953, Jan. 2006. Goldin notes that women constituted 24 percent of all clerical workers in the United States in 1900; by 1930, that figure had risen to 52 percent. Also see Kanter, Men and Women of the Corporation, 26–27. “Become stenographers”: Quoted in Bessen, 62. Chesterton, a Brit, was referring specifically to the streets of London, where women had demonstrated for women’s suffrage in 1910. By the 1940s: Goldin, “The Quiet Revolution That Transformed Women’s Employment, Education, and Family.” Also see, McColloch, White-Collar Workers in Transition, 177.
“Massive scale”: Milkman, Gender at Work, 1. Fraction of women: Milkman, Gender at Work, 13, 51. Big increases: Milkman, Gender at Work, 50. “Piling up evidence”: Milkman, Gender at Work, 120. “More precise”: Milkman, Gender at Work, 120. “Monotony didn’t seem”: 1979 interview with Male, Hall of History Biographical and Oral History Collection, SMA. Also quoted in Blackwelder, 170.
“Rain or shine”: See “Rosie the Riveter: Real Women Workers in World War II,” Library of Congress (loc.gov/rr/program/journey/rosie-transcript.html). Ephemeral figure: Kessler-Harris, Out to Work, 295; Deslippe, “Rights, Not Roses,” 17. Even earlier: Milkman, Gender at Work, 112. Women were drummed: Milkman, Gender at Work, 113. Left willingly: Deslippe, 14; Kessler-Harris, Out to Work, 295–296. Collins, When Everything Changed, 98, goes so far as to assert that “most of the single women readily complied with society’s demand that they go back home and leave the jobs for the returning veterans.” Four out of five: Deslippe, 14. Numerous tricks: Milkman, Gender at Work, 113–115. By 1946: Milkman, Gender at Work, 113.
Kitchens and bedrooms: See Kesller-Harris, Out to Work, 296. Coauthor: Farnham wrote the book with journalist Ferdinand Lundberg. “Terrific cost”: From a video found at youtube.com/watch?v=UOH-PyZecVM. Regarding Modern Woman: The Lost Sex, see Deslippe, 15; Kessler-Harris, Out to Work, 297. Magazine poll: Deslippe, 15.
“I am sure”: Friedan, The Feminine Mystique, 134.
Ever more women: The female labor force participation rate in the United States rose from 36 percent in 1955 to 43 percent in 1969. But this jump was all due to increased participation among married women, where the rate increased from 29 percent to 36 percent over that same span. Among single women, the rate actually went down, from 61 percent to 57 percent. (“Female labor force, by marital status: 1955–1999,” Sutch and Carter, 2–93.) Also see “A Century of Change: The U.S. Labor Force, 1950–2050” by Mitra Toossi, Monthly Labor Review, May 2002; Kessler-Harris, Out to Work, 302–303; “The Quiet Revolution That Transformed Women’s Employment, Education, and Family” by Claudia Goldin, National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper No. 11953, Jan. 2006. Part-time work: In 1969, more than 90 percent of men who worked did so full-time, compared with just 74 percent of women who worked (“Persons at work and working full-time, by age, sex, and race: 1956–1997,” Sutch and Carter, 2–314). Antidiscrimination laws: These included the Equal Pay Act of 1963, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, executive orders in 1965 and 1967 pertaining to affirmative action, and Title IX of the Educational Amendments Act of 1972 (“Labor Force” by Susan B. Carter, Sutch and Carter, 2–29). Also see Collins, When Everything Changed, 75–81, 104–105. She tells the story of how Representative Howard Smith, a Virginia Democrat, originally added to the Civil Rights Act the amendment protecting women “as a joke.” Pill: The Food and Drug Administration approved its use in 1960. At first, it was accessible only to married women. But in the 1970s, following key court rulings, the pill began to be widely available to single women as well. This allowed them to put off marriage and concentrate on their education, including graduate school. See Collins, When Everything Changed, 102–103; Goldin, “The Quiet Revolution That Transformed Women’s Employment, Education, and Family”; “50 Years of Legal Birth Control: How It Changed the Workplace for Women,” Fortune, June 7, 2015.
Their start: Hatton, The Temp Economy, 2. By millions: Hatton, 2, 14–20. By 1961: Haton, 5–6.
With names: Hatton, 13. Would mollify: Hatton, 3, 12–13, 22–27. “Double life”: Hatton, 23–24. “White Gloves”: Hatton, 13–14. “Rosie was working”: Hatton, 12.
Agencies circumvented: Hatton, 3–5. Wind up affecting: Hatton (3–4, 12, 14) notes that despite the public image they carefully cultivated, many temp agencies actually hired men all along. By the early 1960s, nearly half of Manpower’s workers were male.
“Radical consequences”: Kessler-Harris, Out to Work, 300.
Explicitly offered: June 27, 1953, minutes, Conference on Women’s Rates, National UE-GE Conference Board, HQP; “Discrimination GE Style for 29 Years” by Helen Quirni, typescript, 1997, HQP; Cobble, The Other Women’s Movement, 120. Fort Wayne: Testimony of Electrical Workers President James Carey during hearings on the Equal Pay Act before the US Senate Subcommittee on Labor, Aug. 1, 1962. Double seniority lists: April 4, 1969, meeting minutes between the Electrical Workers and GE on “General Grievance on Discrimination of Women,” HQP. Fought much harder: This was true primarily at the international level; locals often lagged in promoting women’s rights. See Deslippe, 38–39, 98–101; Cobble, 119–120; Milkman, Gender at Work, 74–77. Succeeded in eliminating: Cobble, 120. Also see “Is Mama in a Speed-Up Too?: GE, UE, and Representations of Women in the Postwar Workplace” by Lisa Kannenberg, Organization of American Historians, March 1995; “UE Strike Victory at Tung-Sol Narrows Women’s Differential,” UE District 4 Fair Practices Bulletin, June 12, 1953, HQP. Remained the same: April 4, 1969, meeting minutes between the Electrical Workers and GE on “General Grievance on Discrimination of Women,” HQP.
Painfully slow: Blackwelder, 167–171. Adelaide Oppenheim: All details on, and quotes from, Oppenheim are gleaned from a 1976 interview with her, conducted by the Oral History Research Office at Columbia University.
Only six: According to Oppenheim’s oral history. “Scarcely anything”: Collins, When Everything Changed, 22. Also see Kanter, Men and Women of the Corporation, 17.
“Girl engineers”: Ad from Feb. 1959, found in the files of SMA. Accounted for: Collins, When Everything Changed, 20. “The problem”: “A Shopping Tour! Gal Engineer Goes to GE’s ‘Store’ For Jet Engine Control Parts,” Cincinnati Inquirer, Feb. 18, 1958.
“Pink-collar ghetto”: The term is used by Blackwelder, 157. Trapped there: Kanter, Men and Women of the Corporation, 71–72, 98–99, 136, 159–161. “Do you type?”: “The Quiet Revolution That Transformed Women’s Employment, Education, and Family” by Claudia Goldin, National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper No. 11953, Jan. 2006.
1950s guidebook: “English Know-How: For Women Only… Especially Those Who Want to Get Ahead,” SMA. This focus on appearance and grooming for secretaries had a long tradition, including through the curriculum at the Katharine Gibbs School, which through the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries trained and placed “Gibbs girls” into some of the best secretarial jobs. See Kanter, Men and Women of the Corporation, 27.
“Winsome lass”: GE Oakland News, Nov. 1, 1961, UE. “Visitor from Mars”: “Visiting Lady Engineer Proof Distaff Capable in Industry,” General Electric News, Oct. 29, 1954, SMA.
“Really opened”: “Discrimination GE Style for 29 Years” by Helen Quirni, typescript, 1997, HQP. This change occurred in 1975. Took a job: Biographical details on Quirini are from HQP.
Gilbert challenged: Reed, 184–185. Class action: Reed, 185–186. Great anticipation: Dobbin, 166–171. GE won: General Electric Co. v. Gilbert, 429 U.S. 125 (1976). See “Another Ruling With Widespread Impact,” U.S. News & World Report, Dec. 20, 1976.
Pregnancy Discrimination Act: Dobbin, 171. GE did away: Reed, 186. “The mindset”: Quoted in Reed, 186.
“Men Helping Man”: This slogan was used during 1971 and 1972 in advertisements that appeared in, among other publications, Time, Life, U.S. News & World Report, Newsweek, Business Week, Forbes, and, somewhat ironically, Black Enterprise. See Miller and Swift, Words and Women, 29.
“Couldn’t ask”: Horwitt, 495. Buckingham Palace: Alinsky, Rules for Radicals, 171.
Began contacting: Horwitt, 496–497. Wasn’t trying: Alinsky, 172; Horwitt, 496. “The razor”: Alinsky, 175.
Became nervous: Horwitt, 496. “Megacorporations”: “Playboy Interview: Saul Alinsky,” Playboy, March 1972.
Just 40,000: Sethi, 38; Horwitt, 497. Some 600: “Negroes Protest Kodak Policies, Disrupt Meeting,” Cleveland Press, April 26, 1967. Bused in: Horwitt, 497. Held signs: “Civil Rights Group Turns Kodak Parley Into Shouting Match,” Pittsburgh Press, April 26, 1967. “Snaps the Shutter”: Horwitt, 498. About forty: “Its Exposure to Alinsky a Kodak Jolt,” Chicago Daily News, April 26, 1967; “Negroes Quit Kodak Meeting, Threaten ‘War,’ The Plain Dealer, April 26, 1967. Sat alongside: “Kodak, FIGHT, and the Destination of Civil Rights in Rochester, New York: 1966–1967” by R.D.G. Wadhwani, The Historian, 1997. “Mr. Chairman”: Transcript of annual meeting, KHC. “Throw him out”: Sethi, 40.
186–187 Florence repeated: Sethi, 40. “White arrogance”: “Kodak Refuses to Restore Negro Job Pact; Rights Group Vows ‘War’ Against Concern,” Wall Street Journal, April 26, 1967; “Its Exposure to Alinsky a Kodak Jolt,” Chicago Daily News, April 26, 1967. “Yes or no”: “Negroes Quit Kodak Meeting, Threaten ‘War,’” The Plain Dealer, April 26, 1967. The words in this account are slightly different from those in the meeting transcript in KHC. His finger: Sethi, 40. Paused: “Negroes Protest Kodak Policies, Disrupt Meeting,” Cleveland Press, April 26, 1967. “No, sir”: Sethi, 40. “Out of here”: “Its Exposure to Alinsky a Kodak Jolt,” Chicago Daily News, April 26, 1967. Lobbed slights: “Civil Rights Group Turns Kodak Parley Into Shouting Match,” Pittsburgh Press, April 26, 1967.
“This is war”: “New Threat for Employers? What a Negro Group Seeks from Kodak,” U.S. News & World Report, May 8, 1967. Also see “Kodak, FIGHT, and the Destination of Civil Rights in Rochester, New York: 1966–1967” by R.D.G. Wadhwani, The Historian, 1997. Raised his requirement: “Negroes Quit Kodak Meeting, Threaten ‘War,’ The Plain Dealer, April 26, 1967. Might picket: Sethi, 41. “We go”: Sethi, 41. “Silks and satins”: Sethi, 41. Pilgrimage: Sethi, 41. By surprise: Horwitt, 499.
Lose support: Horwitt, 500–501. “Won’t hold”: Horwitt, 501. Also see Weisman, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, 145–146. A statement: Kodak, FIGHT, and the Destination of Civil Rights in Rochester, New York: 1966–1967” by R.D.G. Wadhwani, The Historian, 1997; Sethi, 42. “Have a deal”: Wadhwani, “Kodak, FIGHT, and the Destination of Civil Rights in Rochester, New York: 1966–1967.” “Walk taller”: Horwitt, 502.
“Combat poverty”: Sethi, 43. Business Opportunities Corporation: Sethi, 44–45; “Kodak, FIGHT, and the Destination of Civil Rights in Rochester, New York: 1966–1967” by R.D.G. Wadhwani, The Historian, 1997. Mold shop: Sethi, 44. Teens on Patrol: “Urban Opportunities… No Longer Business as Usual,” a presentation by Kodak vice president Gerald B. Zornow to the National Association of Photographic Manufacturers, Oct. 21, 1968, KHC. Also see “Industry Gives New Hope to the Negro,” Ebony, June 1968.
Training programs: “Urban Opportunities… No Longer Business as Usual,” a presentation by Kodak vice president Gerald B. Zornow to the National Association of Photographic Manufacturers, Oct. 21, 1968, KHC; “Equal Employment Opportunity: Eastman Kodak Company’s Positive Program,” KHC. National Alliance: Delton, 228–234; “Industry Gives New Hope to the Negro,” Ebony, June 1968. Coca-Cola’s participation in the NAB is discussed in a Sept. 12, 1968, memo from J. Paul Austin to R. W. Woodruff, RWP. Rochester Jobs Inc.: Sethi, 38–39. Florence scoffed: Sethi, 39. “Trying to do”: “Kodak Faces the Urban Crisis,” KHC. Also quoted in “Industry Gives New Hope to the Negro,” Ebony, June 1968.
Blacks worked for: “Scientist With a Cause,” Ebony, December 1969. 4 percent: Kodak had about 47,000 employees in Rochester in 1968.
Occupational segregation: “Occupational segregation indexes, by sex, race, and nativity: 1850–1990,” Sutch and Carter, 2–253. Would narrow: “Median earnings of full-time workers, by sex and race: 1960–1997,” Sutch and Carter, 2–294. White-collar jobs: Amanda E. Lewis, Maria Krysan, Sharon M. Collins, Korie Edwards, and Geoff Ward’s essay “Institutional Patters and Transformations: Race and Ethnicity in Housing, Education, Labor Markets, Religion, and Criminal Justice” in Krysan and Lewis, The Changing Terrain of Race and Ethnicity, 80. Also see Delton, 285. Miniscule fraction: In manufacturing, blacks held just 1 percent of managerial and administrative positions in 1970, according to Kelley, Into the Fire, 58. Twice the rate: “Black Unemployment Rate Is Consistently Twice That of Whites” by Drew DeSilver, Pew Research Center, Aug. 2013. “Mixed results”: “A Decade of Struggle,” Ebony, Jan. 1975.
Entered the workforce: The labor force participation rate for women increased from 37.7 percent in 1960 to 43.3 percent in 1970. Among married women during that span, the rate jumped from 31.9 percent to 40.5 percent. (“Female labor force, by marital status: 1955–1999,” Sutch and Carter, 2–93.) Two-thirds: Collins, When Everything Changed, 98. Sixty cents: This figure held remarkably steady through the late 1970s, as noted in “The Gender Pay Gap” by Francine D. Blau and Larence M. Kahn, The Economists’ Voice, Vol. 4, No. 4, 2007. Also see “Explaining Trends in the Gender Wage Gap,” a report by the White House Council of Economic Advisers, June 1998. “Glass ceiling”: The term would then enter the popular press in the mid-1980s. See “The Phrase ‘Glass Ceiling’ Stretches Back Decades,” Wall Street Journal, April 3, 2015. It’s important to note that black women often face a particularly pernicious form of discrimination—an “intersectional experience” that is “greater than the sum of racism and sexism,” in the words of Kimberle Crenshaw (“Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory, and Antiracist Politics,” The University of Chicago Legal Forum, 1989). “Has not resulted”: Kanter, Men and Women of the Corporation, 16–17.
“The twentieth century”: “Pressures on Management and Management’s Own Initiatives: A Two-Way Street,” remarks by Virgil Day before the Twentieth Annual Roundtable Conference sponsored by the Industrial Relations Committee of the Edison Electric Institute, Sept. 27, 1967, ILIR. Low voice: From a 2013 interview by the author with Day’s son, John.
Private pilot: From a 2013 interview by the author with Day’s son, John. Air travel: In 1960, there were about 56 million American airplane passengers. That number nearly tripled by 1969 to 158 million, according to Rielly, The 1960s, 227. Highway system: “USA Interstate Highway System: Miles/Kilometers Opened by Year,” Wendell Cox Consultancy (publicpurpose.com/hwy-intmiles.htm).
Large jumps: “Wage Levels and Inequality: Measuring and Interpreting the Trends” by Marvin H. Kosters, American Enterprise Institute, 1998; “Futurework: Trends and Challenges for Work in the 21st Century,” US Department of Labor, 1999. Been docile: “Historical Inflation Rates: 1914–2015,” US Inflation Calculator, CoinNews.net; Cairncross and Cairncross, The Legacy of the Golden Age, 224. Mild recession: Glasner, 568; “Survey of Current Business,” US Department of Commerce, Jan. 1961. Also see “The Recession Is Over,” Life, April 14, 1961. The magazine noted that industrial production fell only 8 percent, compared with 14 percent during the 1957–58 downturn. GNP dropped a mere 1 percent. The recession officially lasted for eleven months, from April 1960 through February 1961.
“Moving again”: Greider, Secrets of the Temple, 329; Wells, Economist in an Uncertain World, 19; Cagan, Estey, Fellner, McLure, and Moore, Economic Policy and Inflation in the Sixties, 207. Ramp up: Greider, Secrets of the Temple, 329–331; Samuelson, The Great Inflation and Its Aftermath, 17; “Macroeconomic Policy in the 1960s: The Causes and Consequences of a Mistaken Revolution” by Christina D. Romer, University of California at Berkeley, Sept. 2007. Also see “Let’s Not Forget the Decade the Liberals Love to Hate: The 1960s and President Kennedy’s Successful, Supply-Side Tax Cuts” by Mark J. Perry, Carpe Diem, American Enterprise Institute, Aug. 17, 2013. “Fine-tune”: Greider, Secrets of the Temple, 331. Also see Samuelson, The Great Inflation and Its Aftermath, 56–57. “With proper fiscal”: Wells, Economist in an Uncertain World, 20. Laureate: Samuelson won the Nobel Prize in 1970.
Hubris: Wells, Economist in an Uncertain World, 21. “Effectively abolishing”: Wells, Economist in an Uncertain World, 20. Master plan worked: Greider, Secrets of the Temple, 331; Wells, Economist in an Uncertain World, 21; Samuelson, The Good Life and Its Discontents, 88–89. Economy had expanded: “Annual Real Gross Domestic Product, Not Seasonally Adjusted,” Economic Data, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Unemployment rate: “Labor force, employment, and unemployment: 1938–2000,” Sutch and Carter, 2–85. On its cover: Noted in Samuelson, The Great Inflation and Its Aftermath, 62; Samuelson, The Good Life and Its Discontents, 74. “In Washington”: “We Are All Keynesians Now,” Time, Dec. 31, 1965. A record: “U.S. Business Cycle Expansions and Contractions,” National Bureau of Economic Research (nber.org/cycles/US_Business_Cycle_Expansions_and_Contractions_20120423.pdf).
“New ballgame”: “Pressures on Management and Management’s Own Initiatives: A Two-Way Street,” remarks by Virgil Day before the Twentieth Annual Roundtable Conference sponsored by the Industrial Relations Committee of the Edison Electric Institute, Sept. 27, 1967, ILIR. “Wage explosion”: “Labor: More—Now!,” Time, Sept. 2, 1966.
Issued guideposts: Wells, Economist in an Uncertain World, 21; Samuelson, The Great Inflation and Its Aftermath, 93; Cagan, Estey, Fellner, McLure, and Moore, 207–211. “Competition from abroad”: “Another Look at the ‘Wage Guideposts,’” Relations News Letter, General Electric, Aug. 13, 1963, ILIR. Two decades: Siracusa, Encyclopedia of the Kennedys, 525. “Industrial statesmanship”: Siracusa, 525.
Six dollars: Cagan, Estey, Fellner, McLure, and Moore, 225. “Terrible mistake”: Sabato, The Kennedy Half Century, 98. “Fucked me”: Sabato, 99. Arthur Goldberg: He had been general counsel of the United Steelworkers before entering government. “Father told me”: Sabato, 99; Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, 659. “S.O.B. Club”: Sabato, 100.
Companies followed: Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, 659. “This serious hour”: Transcript of presidential news conference, April 11, 1962, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. Agents raided: Sabato, 99; Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, 660; Cagan, Estey, Fellner, McLure, and Moore, 225–226. Also approached: Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, 660. Three days after: Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, 660.
Truly believed: Eisenhower, Waging Peace, 379–380. Also see Wells, Economist in an Uncertain World, 15; “How Eisenhower and Congressional Democrats Balanced a Budget” by Rudy Penner, TaxVox, Tax Policy Center, Dec. 17, 2012. Far more focused: Samuelson, The Great Inflation and Its Aftermath, 47–74. The government’s target was an unemployment rate of no higher than 4 percent, with inflation presumably running at 3 percent to 4 percent. “Greatly exaggerated”: Tobin, The New Economics One Decade Older, 101. Also quoted in Wells, Economist in an Uncertain World, 20. Also see “America’s Peacetime Inflation: The 1970s” by J. Bradford DeLong, National Bureau of Economic Research, Jan. 1997 (nber.org/chapters/c8886). Nobel Prize: He won in 1981.
Vietnam: Regarding the war’s fueling of inflation—and President Johnson’s reluctance to push for a tax increase to tamp down economic demand—see Cairncross and Cairncross, 224–229; Wells, Economist in an Uncertain World, 23; Samuelson, The Great Inflation and Its Aftermath, 14. “Famous debate”: Greider, Secrets of the Temple, 333. Contract negotiations: Samuelson, The Great Inflation and Its Aftermath, 94. Bethlehem Steel: Samuelson, The Great Inflation and Its Aftermath, 94. Aluminum and copper: Samuelson, The Great Inflation and Its Aftermath, 95. Price of lamb: Samuelson, The Great Inflation and Its Aftermath, 95. Egg prices: Samuelson, The Great Inflation and Its Aftermath, 96.
Ignored his own: “Gone Guideposts,” Time, Aug. 12, 1966. 3 percent: It was 3.2 percent. 4 percent: It was 4.3 percent. Settled on 5: It was 4.97 percent, to be exact. See “Airlines: Back to Work Through an Open Gate,” Time, Aug. 26, 1966; Samuelson, The Great Inflation and Its Aftermath, 96; Cagan, Estey, Fellner, McLure, and Moore, 172. “Will not cause”: “End 44-Day Air Strike,” Chicago Tribune, Aug. 20, 1966. “Thoroughly shreds”: Airlines: Back to Work Through an Open Gate,” Time, Aug. 26, 1966. Also see Samuelson, The Great Inflation and Its Aftermath, 96.
“Can force them”: “Steel: Why Not?” Time, Aug. 12, 1966.
Consumer prices: “Historical Inflation Rates: 1914–2015,” US Inflation Calculator, CoinNews.net; Cairncross and Cairncross, 224. Also see Cagan, Estey, Fellner, McLure, and Moore, 175–178. “Whether or not”: “Pressures on Management and Management’s Own Initiatives: A Two-Way Street,” remarks by Virgil Day before the Twentieth Annual Roundtable Conference sponsored by the Industrial Relations Committee of the Edison Electric Institute, Sept. 27, 1967, ILIR.
Biggest economic malady: Wells, Economist in an Uncertain World, 34; “A Legacy of Trouble for 1970’s,” New York Times, Jan. 11, 1970. More intent: Wells, Economist in an Uncertain World, 34; Samuelson, The Great Inflation and Its Aftermath, 63. “In the abstract”: Collins, More: The Politics of Economic Growth in Postwar America, 112. “Gradualism”: Collins, 112; Wells, Economist in an Uncertain World, 34–35; Cagan, Estey, Fellner, McLure, and Moore, 58–63. Also see “Nixon’s Gradualism Path,” New York Times, Sept. 16, 1970. “Level things off”: “Address to the Nation on the Rising Cost of Living,” Oct. 17, 1969, found in Nixon, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, 809. Nixon pledged: “Administration’s Role So Far Is Hands Off,” New York Times, Nov. 2, 1969; “Labor’s Opening Fight for Higher Wages,” Time, Nov. 7, 1969; “First Big Test for Nixon’s Hold-Down on Wages,” U.S. News & World Report, Nov. 3, 1969. To “jawbone”: “Address to the Nation on the Rising Cost of Living,” Oct. 17, 1969, found in Nixon, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, 811. Also see Cagan, Estey, Fellner, McLure, and Moore, 229–230.
Kicking in: “Address to the Nation on the Rising Cost of Living,” Oct. 17, 1969, found in Nixon, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, 809–810. Accelerated less quickly: Annualized growth in the Consumer Price Index went from 6.6 percent in the second quarter to 5.4 percent in the third; annualized growth in the Wholesale Price Index went from 5.7 percent to 3.2 percent during that same timeframe (Wells, Economist in an Uncertain World, 258). What with: Nixon had cut federal spending by more than $7 billion a year and extended a government surtax. “Tail end”: “Inflation: More, More, More,” Time, Sept. 19, 1969. “A consensus”: “When Bad News Is Good News,” Life, Oct. 17, 1969. Also see “Nixon Policy Slowly Curbing Inflation,” Chicago Tribune, Sept. 15, 1969.
“Everybody’s problem”: “Letter to Business and Labor Leaders on the Rising Cost of Living,” Oct. 18, 1969, found in Nixon, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, 813. Also quoted in Wells, Economist in an Uncertain World, 40. “Bad for business”: “Address to the Nation on the Rising Cost of Living,” Oct. 17, 1969, found in Nixon, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, 810. Didn’t even want: “Address to the Nation on the Rising Cost of Living,” Oct. 17, 1969, found in Nixon, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, 811; Wells, Economist in an Uncertain World, 35; Cagan, Estey, Fellner, McLure, and Moore, 229–230. “Commits errors”: Letter to Business and Labor Leaders on the Rising Cost of Living,” Oct. 18, 1969, found in Nixon, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, 813.
The same week: “Inflation: More, More, More,” Time, Sept. 19, 1969. “Isn’t going to be”: “U.S. Faces Period of Labor Unrest,” New York Times, Dec. 1, 1969. “Get our equity”: “U.A.W. Proposes That Labor Raise $50-Million Fund to Aid G.E. Strikers,” New York Times, Nov. 9, 1969. “The supermarket”: “An Acid Test for Nixon’s Plea for Restraint,” New York Times, Oct. 26, 1969.
Unit labor costs: From Bureau of Labor Statistics figures published in Cagan, Estey, Fellner, McLure, and Moore, 197. A key reason that this measure started to rise so significantly in the late 1960s is that wages were rising sharply at the same time that productivity was beginning to fall. “Conveyer belt”: Samuelson, The Great Inflation and Its Aftermath, 146.
“Source of the problem”: “U.A.W. Proposes That Labor Raise $50-Million Fund to Aid G.E. Strikers,” New York Times, Nov. 9, 1969. “Is overreaching”: From “Union Power and the New Inflation,” Fortune, Feb. 1971. Quoted in Phillips-Fein, 156; Cowie, Stayin’ Alive, 221.
“Powerful oligarchy”: Waterhouse, Lobbying America, 98. 10 percent: “Roger’s Roundtable,” Time, Aug. 29, 1969. 1969. “Irritate them”: Linder, Wars of Attrition, 197. Was formed: Linder, 182–205; “New Blough Panel to Fight Increase in Building Costs,” New York Times, Aug. 21, 1969. Mizruchi, 107–108. By coordinating: Linder, 193–194. “Runaway wages”: Linder, 197. Indicated otherwise: Linder, 201–205.
“Roger’s Roundtable”: Waterhouse, 100. Were involved: Waterhouse, 100; Linder, 198. Including: Waterhouse, 116–117. “Of all evil”: Linder, 203. Day served as chairman of the Roundtable’s Coordinating Committee.
Would suspend: See Nixon’s “Statement on Suspending Davis-Bacon Act Provisions for Federal Construction Projects,” Feb. 23, 1971 (http://presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=3319). Took credit: Waterhouse, 101. Also see Lambert, 203; Cowie, 149–150. “But too little”: Waterhouse, 101.
A series: “U.S. Faces Period of Labor Unrest,” New York Times, Dec. 1, 1969; Serrin, 5.
In October: Negotiations had started in August, but the company made its first formal offer on Oct. 7, 1969. See “G.E. Gives Unions First Money Offer,” New York Times, Oct. 8, 1969. Unions representing: “Labor’s Opening Fight for Higher Wages,” Time, Nov. 7, 1969. “Acid test”: “An Acid Test for Nixon’s Plea for Restraint,” New York Times, Oct. 26, 1969. Also see “First Big Test for Nixon’s Hold-Down on Wages,” U.S. News & World Report, Nov. 3, 1969. “Crucial effect”: “Administration’s Role So Far Is Hands Off,” New York Times, Nov. 2, 1969. As high: “GE Bind Tightens,” Business Week, Sept. 6, 1969; “An Acid Test for Nixon’s Plea for Restraint,” New York Times, Oct. 26, 1969; “Test of Strength at G.E.,” New York Times, Oct. 28, 1969; “Administration’s Role So Far Is Hands Off,” New York Times, Nov. 2, 1969; “Labor’s Opening Fight for Higher Wages,” Time, Nov. 7, 1969.
“Companies inspired”: “Unions Now Face Tougher Management,” New York Times, Oct. 2, 1960. “Truthful and forthright”: “Truthful and Forthright Bargaining Shows GE Determination to Do Right,” General Electric News, April 22, 1960, LBP. “Brainwashing”: “Why There Is a Strike at General Electric,” International Union of Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers, BL; “Boulwarism at the Crossroads” by James B. Carey, I.R. Review, Le Moyne College, Spring 1962, IUE. “Our viewpoint”: “Why There Is a Strike at General Electric,” International Union of Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers, BL.
Far apart: “G.E. Strike Voted; Begins Tomorrow,” New York Times, Oct. 1, 1960; “Facts in the G.E. Strike,” New York Times, Oct. 3, 1960.
“Thick head”: “Strike at G.E.,” Time, Oct. 10, 1960. Soundproofed: Northrup, 84.
First major walkout: Brenner, Day, and Ness, 70. Its plants open: Schatz, 228; Northrup, 89; “Violence on the Picket Line,” Time, Oct. 17, 1960. With hatpins: “Violence on the Picket Line,” Time, Oct. 17, 1960. Scattered nails: Oct. 1, 1960, memo from Stuart MacMackin of GE Legal Operations, LBP. Two GE factories: “G.E. Strike Effect Varies Across U.S.,” New York Times, Oct. 4, 1960. Six people: “G.E. Strike Effect Varies Across U.S.,” New York Times, Oct. 4, 1960. “Marked men”: “Violence on the Picket Line,” Time, Oct. 17, 1960. Deflated their tires: Northrup, photograph before 89.
200–201 Lukewarm at best: Schatz (228) notes that five of the IUE’s 46 GE locals voted not to strike in the first place. Also see “Showdown for Carey,” New York Times, Oct. 23, 1960. “Did not have”: Northrup, 88. “Suicidal expedition”: “Hari Carey?” Time, Oct. 31, 1960. Began to materialize: Northrup, 89.
“Benedict Arnold”: “G.E. Strike Ends; Company Victor,” New York Times, Oct. 23, 1960. Also quoted in Schatz, 228. “Demands are musts”: “The Story of General Electric’s 1960 Negotiations with the IUE,” LBP. Offering all along: Schatz, 227; “G.E. Strike Ends; Company Victor,” New York Times, Oct. 23, 1960. “Nobody ever wins”: “G.E. Strike Ends; Company Victor,” New York Times, Oct. 23, 1960. “Worst setback”: “G.E.’s Labor Formula,” New York Times, Oct. 25, 1960. Also quoted in Northrup, 90; Schatz, 227.
IUE filed: Decisions of National Labor Relations Board, “Statement of Case,” General Electric Company and International Union of Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers, AFL-CIO. Cases Nos. 2-CA-7581–1, 3-CA-7581–92, 2-CA-7581–4, and 2-CA-7864 (post 10-CA-4682). Dec. 16, 1964. All details in this chapter about GE’s conduct during the 1960 negotiations and the course of the litigation, unless otherwise noted, are drawn from this document. Also see “‘Boulwareism’: Legality and Effect,” Harvard Law Review, Vol. 76, No. 4, Feb. 1963; Gross, Broken Promise, 187–189. In the past: Similar charges, brought in 1954 and 1958, had been dismissed by the NLRB, according to Northrup, 91.
Full NLRB: In addition to Decisions of National Labor Relations Board, see “NLRB Finds General Electric Failed to Bargain in Good Faith,” Dec. 16, 1964, NLRB news release, ILIR; Statement by General Electric vice president Virgil Day, Dec. 16, 1964, ILIR. Was retired: He stepped down on Jan. 1, 1961. “Common misrepresentation”: “Collective Bargaining and the ‘Suffocating Blanket,” an address by Virgil B. Day before the Twelfth Annual Industrial Relations Conference of the Electronic Industries Association, April 14, 1965, ILIR. “Fully and frankly”: “Truth in Bargaining and Free Speech,” an address by Virgil B. Day before the Cincinnati Personnel Association and Society for the Advancement of Management, Feb. 4, 1965, ILIR.
Media rushed: All of these quotations from the press are found in “Flood of Comment in Nation’s Press Supports Company in NLRB Case,” Relations News Letter, General Electric, Feb. 1, 1965, ILIR.
Slowly through: The course of the litigation is recounted in National Labor Relations Board v. General Electric Co., Respondent, and International Union of Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers, AFL-CIO, Intervenor, 418 F.2d 736 (1969).
In 1963: Northrup, 147–152; “Electric Union and G.E. Settle,” New York Times, Sept. 26, 1963. In 1966: “Pact at General Electric,” New York Times, Oct. 17, 1966. The newspaper called the settling of the contract without a strike “a triumph of good sense over the temptation on both sides to indulge in a pointless test of economic muscle.” “Build a statue”: Sept. 21, 1960, letter from Buckley to Boulware, LBP. Also quoted in Evans, 106. More infighting: “Carey Faces Fight at I.U.E. Session,” New York Times, Sept. 20 1964. “Judas element”: “Carey Denounces ‘Judases’ in Union,” New York Times, Sept. 17, 1962. Investigation found: “Carey’s Election Is Ruled Illegal,” New York Times, April 6, 1965; “Carey Quits, Jennings New IUE President,” Chicago Tribune, April 8, 1965; “Electrical Union Names Jennings,” New York Times, April 8, 1965; Schatz, 227.
Voracious reader: “Dedicated Unionist: Paul Joseph Jennings,” New York Times, April 6, 1965; “G.E. Strike Leader,” New York Times, Oct. 27, 1969. Become “personalized”: “Jennings Vows to Avoid ‘Personalized’ Bargaining with GE,” Employee Relations News, General Electric, June 21, 1965.
“Tough-minded”: “G.E. Strike Leader,” New York Times, Oct. 27, 1969. Single bloc: “G.E. and 11 Unions Agree on a Pact,” New York Times, Oct. 15, 1966. Last-minute intercession by a special White House panel, acting after President Johnson had said that a strike would harm the war effort in Vietnam, had sealed the deal. Also see “G.E. Strike Delay Won by President,” New York Times, Oct. 3, 1966.
Just a tad: “G.E. and 11 Unions Agree on a Pact,” New York Times, Oct. 15, 1966; “Who Won in the GE Settlement,” Business Week, Oct. 22, 1966. “Father-knows-best”: “Shambo Says Negotiating With GE Is Just Like ‘Shoveling Smoke,’” Berkshire Eagle of Pittsfield, Mass., Sept. 29, 1969.
The dozen: “Labor’s Opening Fight for Higher Wages,” Time, Nov. 7, 1969. Though the coalition consisted of twelve unions, a total of thirteen would go out on strike against the company. The United Electrical Workers, while independent, cooperated with the coalition. “Is hungry”: “Costliest GE Contract?” Business Week, June 28, 1969.
“Our conviction”: Sept. 9, 1969, “IUE Negotiations Status Report” from Moore to GE managers, UE.
Wanted a contract: “GE Strike Termed 99% Effective by Unions,” Wall Street Journal, Oct. 28, 1969; “G.E. Negotiations Hit a Snag,” New York Times, Oct. 25, 1969. Stressed that wages: “Borch Discusses Strike With Shareowners,” Employee Headliner, General Electric Residential Distribution Transformer Plant, UE. “Best offer”: “G.E. Gives Unions First Money Offer,” New York Times, Oct. 8, 1969. “The worst”: “2 Unions Reject G.E. Pact Offer,” New York Times, Oct. 9, 1969.
Violence flared: “GE Strike Termed 99% Effective by Unions,” Wall Street Journal, Oct. 28, 1969. Also see “Pickets Keep Nonstrikers Out of Main G.E. Plant,” New York Times, Oct. 29, 1969; “GE Settles Down for a Long Ordeal,” Business Week, Nov. 1, 1969. 205 “Pettifogging insistence”: National Labor Relations Board v. General Electric Co., Respondent, and International Union of Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers, AFL-CIO, Intervenor, 418 F.2d 736 (1969).
“Has been provoked”: Oct. 29, 1969 IUE news release, IUE. “Can’t conceive”: “G.E. Is Unyielding on Its Offer to Unions Despite Decision of Court,” New York Times, Oct. 30, 1969. Also see “The Issue Is Boulwarism,” The Nation, Nov. 10, 1969; “Founder of ‘Boulwarism,’” New York Times, Nov. 3, 1969. Had rid: “G.E. Strike Leader,” New York Times, Oct. 27, 1969; “GE Strike: An End to Boulwarism?” Wall Street Journal, Oct. 28, 1969. “We’ll hold out”: “GE Strike: An End to Boulwarism?” Wall Street Journal, Oct. 28, 1969.
Federal Mediation: “G.E. Strike Talks Bring No Progress,” New York Times, Nov. 8, 1969. GE official hoped: “G.E. Talks Scheduled,” New York Times, Nov. 16, 1969. Also see “Hint of a Break in GE Deadlock,” Business Week, Nov. 15, 1969. “Twenty-two no’s”: “No Progress in G.E. Strike,” New York Times, Nov. 19, 1969.
Bought meat: “Inflationary End to a Class War,” Time, Feb. 9, 1970. “Job openings”: This and all other details and quotations in this paragraph are from “Schenectady, Largely Tied to G.E., Carefully Girds for a Long Strike,” New York Times, Nov. 13, 1969. Also see “GE Strke Effects Ripple On and On,” Christian Science Monitor, Dec. 12, 1969; G.E. Strikers in Schenectady Defy a Winter of Discontent,” New York Times, Jan. 27, 1970. Strike benefits: After the eighth week of the walkout, strikers would also be eligible for weekly unemployment benefits of sixty-five dollars a week.
Emergency convention: “Union Votes New G.E. Strike Funds,” New York Times, Nov. 22, 1969. Production was running: “Strike at G.E. Is Seen Erasing Earnings,” New York Times, Dec. 11, 1969.
National boycott: “Meany Says Nationwide Boycott of G.E. Is Planned,” New York Times, Nov. 21, 1969; “Labor Threatens Boycott of G.E. If Strike Isn’t Settled by Friday,” New York Times, Nov. 25, 1969; “A.F.L.-C.I.O. Opening Boycott of G.E. Products,” New York Times, Nov. 28, 1969; “Boycott of GE Goods May Prolong Strike,” Business Week, Nov. 29, 1969; “Boycott at G.E.,” Time, Dec. 5, 1969. “Public posturing”: “Labor Threatens Boycott of G.E. If Strike Isn’t Settled by Friday,” New York Times, Nov. 25, 1969. “Foreign goods”: “Federation Steps Up Its Attack on GE,” Business Week, Nov. 22, 1969. Also see the undated GE newspaper advertisement headlined, “Why do union officials ignore competition?” found in UE. “Always hurts”: “Meany Says Nationwide Boycott of G.E. Is Planned,” New York Times, Nov. 21, 1969. Wasn’t cutting: “Impact Is Slight in Boycott of G.E.; But Merchants Say Effect of Strike Is Substantial,” New York Times, Dec. 7, 1969. Also see “Boycott of G.E. Gets Mixed Shopper Reaction,” New York Times, Jan. 14, 1970. A flop: “Points for Both Sides in G.E. Pact,” New York Times, Feb. 1, 1970.
Of the 135: This and all other details on the economic impact of the strike in various localities are from “Impact Is Slight in Boycott of G.E.; But Merchants Say Effect of Strike Is Substantial,” New York Times, Dec. 7, 1969. Carrier Corporation: “GE Suppliers, Clients, Plant Communities Begin to Suffer as the Walkout Drags On,” Wall Street Journal, Jan. 21, 1969. Wiping out: “Strike at G.E. Is Seen Erasing Earnings,” New York Times, Dec. 11, 1969. In the end, earnings plunged 85 percent during the quarter and 22 percent for the full year. See “G.E. Profit in All 1969 Fell 22% on Fourth Quarter’s Strike Slump,” New York Times, Feb. 20, 1970.
It scrapped: “G.E. and Unions Trade Offers as Strike Enters Its 7th Week,” New York Times, Dec. 8, 1969; Dec. 8, 1969, letter from H. D. Beck Jr., GE’s manager of Western operations, to employees, UE. “The maximum”: “Strike at G.E. Is Seen Erasing Earnings,” New York Times, Dec. 11, 1969. “Strong argument”: “GE Strike: When Is a Breakthrough Not a Breakthrough?” New York Times, Dec. 22, 1969.
Ended the negotiations: “Unions Break Off G.E. Strike Talks,” New York Times, Dec. 12, 1969. “Beat us down”: “Heat but No Light at General Electric,” Business Week, Dec. 13, 1969. “May be dead”: “GE Strike: When Is a Breakthrough Not a Breakthrough?” New York Times, Dec. 22, 1969.
“Sought to lure”: The AP story was quoted in the Strike Report of Dec. 22, 1969, UE. About to write: “U.S. Again Moves to Organize Talks in Walkout at G.E.,” New York Times, Jan. 9, 1970. Earlier, Meany had disclosed a plan to raise $1 from each of the AFL-CIO’s 13.5 million members to support the GE strikers. In the end, the campaign achieved less than 20 percent effect. See “Union Seeks Suit on G.E. Bargaining,” New York Times, Nov. 4, 1969; “Points for Both Sides in G.E. Pact, New York Times, Feb. 1, 1970. Fuller than ever: “GE Strike: When Is a Breakthrough Not a Breakthrough?” New York Times, Dec. 22, 1969. “Human dignity”: “Inflationary End to a Class War,” Time, Feb. 9, 1970. Christmas came: “Union Aide Says G.E. Shows No Response,” New York Times, Dec. 20, 1969. New Year’s: “G.E. Negotiations Adjourn; Strike to Enter 11th Week,” New York Times, Dec. 31, 1969.
Entered the fray: “Top U.S. Mediator Enters G.E. Talks,” New York Times, Jan. 8, 1970. For more on the mediator, J. Curtis Counts, see “The Man Who Mediated the 95-Day G.E. Strike,” New York Times, Jan. 31, 1970. He shuttled: “Mediator’s Talks With G.E. and Strikers Are Fruitless,” New York Times, Jan. 10, 1970; “G.E. Talks Viewed As Showing Gain,” New York Times, Jan. 17, 1970; “Mediator’s Role Seen Coming to a Head Soon,” Berkshire Eagle of Pittsfield, Mass., Jan. 23, 1970. Would give: “G.E. Unions Said to Have Reached Accord Lifting Wages About 25% Over 40 Months,” Wall Street Journal, Jan. 30, 1970; “G.E. Negotiators Report Accord in 95-Day Strike,” New York Times, Jan. 30, 1970; “Inflationary End to a Class War,” Time, Feb. 9, 1970; “Basis of Strike Settlement on Economic Issues,” UE; “Two Unions’ Panels Approve Agreements With G.E.,” New York Times, Jan. 31, 1970. Would decline: Cert. denied, 397 U.S. 965 (1970). Legitimately negotiated: “The Rough Road to GE’s Settlement,” Business Week, Jan. 31, 1970; “Two Unions’ Panels Approve Agreements With G.E.,” New York Times, Jan. 31, 1970. “Articles of surrender”: “Hope of Strike Settlement Grows With Reports of New GE Offer,” Berkshire Eagle of Pittsfield, Mass., Jan. 27, 1970.
“In the ballpark”: “Points for Both Sides in G.E. Pact,” New York Times, Feb. 1, 1970. “Does not work”: “Inflationary End to a Class War,” Time, Feb. 9, 1970. Also see “Changing Times,” The Nation, Feb. 16, 1970. “Sense of guilt”: Feb. 16, 1970, letter from Boulware to Fred Borch, LBP.
“Among the losers”: “Inflationary End to a Class War,” Time, Feb. 9, 1970. Slowing down: “The Rising Risk of Recession,” Time, Dec. 19, 1969.
The mildest: “1970: The Year of the Hangover,” Time, Dec. 28, 1970. Output shrank: Wells, Economist in an Uncertain World, 258. Unemployment rate: Wells, Economist in an Uncertain World, 258. Productivity lagged: Output per man-hour in the private sector was up less than 1 percent for the year—far below its historical norm (Cagan, Estey, Fellner, McLure, and Moore, 196). Profits shriveled: They fell to under $50 billion at the end of 1970 from about $55 billion the year before (“Corporate Profits After Tax,” Economic Data, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis). Barely abating: The Consumer Price Index was up 5.7 percent in 1970, just under the 5.8 percent increase it had experienced in 1969 (Wells, Economist in an Uncertain World, 258). Were baffled: “Inflation’s Stubborn Resistance,” Time, Dec. 14, 1970; Greider, Secrets of the Temple, 334. “We underestimated”: “The Rising Risk of Recession,” Time, Dec. 19, 1969.
Smeared their faces: All details in this paragraph are from “Inflation’s Stubborn Resistance,” Time, Dec. 14, 1970.
Sign of the fall: Lichtenstein, Walter Reuther, 438; Cowie,43. Group of luminaries: Lichtenstein, Walter Reuther, 438. “We felt so close”: This quotation and the other details on Reuther’s laying in state are from Memorial Issue, UAW Solidarity, June 1970, ILIR.
Intelligent and articulate: For a well-rounded description of Woodcock, see Serrin, 49–53. “Easy to be”: “The Unknown Who Leads the Walter P. Reuther Memorial Strike,” New York Times, Sept. 27, 1970.
“Timber Dick”: Serrin 53. By 6 percent: Serrin, 6. Also see March 10, 1970, memo from George Weaver to Frank LaBita, “Last Three Contract Settlements at ‘Big Three,” UAW. Had consumed: Serrin, 6; Lichtenstein, Walter Reuther, 419; “Auto Workers Hear the Drums Again,” Time, Sept. 28, 1970. Also see “The UAW, the Auto Companies, The Public Interest, and 1970 Auto Negotiations,” July 8, 1970, UAW. To cap: Serrin, 7, 27; Licthenstein, Walter Reuther, 419, 436; “Woodcock in Crucial Test in Auto Talks,” New York Times, Sept. 6, 1970. The cap had been eight cents per hour per year. Biggest mistake: “Big Stakes in the Auto Talks,” Time, Sept. 7, 1970.
Fighting for: “Woodcock in Crucial Test in Auto Talks,” New York Times, Sept. 6, 1970. “Thirty-and-out”: Serrin, 7. Also see Lowenstein, 40–42. Behind this sentiment: Serrin, 16, 219–242. Also see “The Man on the Assembly Line—A Generation Later” by Robert H. Guest and Stanley H. Udy, undated typescript, RHGP; “The Grueling Life on the Line,” Time, Sept. 28, 1970. To the surprise: Lichtenstein, Walter Reuther, 400–401. “Not about money”: Sept. 26, 1964, “Dear Friend” letter from Reuther, ILIR. Month-long walkout: “Union Moves to End 27-Day G.M. Strike; Sets Weekend Vote,” New York Times, Oct. 22, 1964. More relief time: “GM Strike: Prototype for More Conflict,” The Nation, Nov. 16, 1964.
More than 40 percent: Serrin, 13. “Blue-collar blues”: The term was coined in a July 1970 Fortune magazine piece, “Blue-Collar Blues on the Assembly Line.” For more on the history and use of the term, see Hamilton and Wright, State of the Masses, 20–30. Interestingly, the UAW’s Woodcock hated the concept, dismissing it as “elitist nonsense” that was demeaning to workers. For more on Woodcock’s perspective, see Serrin, 319; “There’s Still a Car in Your Future,” Challenge, May/June 1974. Drugs or alcohol: Cowie, 46; Serrin, 311. “Never make it home”: “The Blue-Collar Blues of the 1970s” by Stephen Meyer, Automobile in American Life and Society, Dearborn and Benson Ford Research Center, University of Michigan.
“Working-class militancy”: “The Blue-Collar Blues of the 1970s” by Stephen Meyer, Automobile in American Life and Society, Dearborn and Benson Ford Research Center, University of Michigan. Local demands: Barnard, 353. Played hooky: Figures are from Serrin, 14, 232. Also see “Price Stability—An Attainable Goal?” an address by James M. Roche at the St. Louis Chamber of Commerce Salute Luncheon, Feb. 20, 1970, UAW. Even sabotaged: Johns, The Sociology of Organizational Change, 47. Also see Cowie, 46; Weir, 436.
National poster child: Things boiled over during a three-week strike in Lordstown in the spring of 1972, a walkout that brought about the slowing of the line. Details on the situation at Lordstown are drawn from Weir, 434–437; Cowie, 42–49; “The Blue-Collar Blues of the 1970s” by Stephen Meyer, Automobile in American Life and Society, Dearborn and Benson Ford Research Center, University of Michigan.. Also see Serrin, 286; 318–319. “Changing lifestyle”: “The 1972 Lordstown Strike,” Walter P. Reuther Library (reuther.wayne.edu/node/10756).
“Scratch your nose”: The quotations from the Lordstown workers are from “The Blue-Collar Blues of the 1970s” by Stephen Meyer, Automobile in American Life and Society, Dearborn and Benson Ford Research Center, University of Michigan.
“Mentally depressing”: From an employee questionnaire, apparently administered in 1974, CCCB. “Depended upon”: “Company Management Expresses Serious Concern About Attendance,” Management Letter, Feb. 24, 1970, KHC. “Constant surveillance”: “Statement of Local 506 and of the Individual Employees Protesting Contract Violations and Invasions of Privacy,” March 1967, UE.
“White-collar moan”: Terkel, Working, xi–xii.
“To the bone”: Serrin, 13.
Low productivity: See “Auto Industry Struggling to Stop Lag in Productivity,” New York Times, Aug. 8, 1970. “Fact of economic life”: “Price Stability—An Attainable Goal?” an address by James M. Roche at the St. Louis Chamber of Commerce Salute Luncheon, Feb. 20, 1970, UAW. Also quoted, in part, in Serrin, 11–12. Also see “Statement of General Motors to UAW,” July 21, 1970, UAW.
Went nowhere: “Auto Pact Talks Evoke Pessimism,” New York Times, Sept. 10, 1970; “G.M. Raises Its Contract Offer to Union,” New York Times, Sept. 12, 1970; “Auto Union Cuts First-Year Wage Demands but Remains Firm on Other Issues as Strike Deadline Nears,” New York Times, Sept. 13, 1970; “Collision Course in Detroit,” Time, Sept. 14, 1970. Walked off: “Car Pact Expires: U.A.W. and Company Blame Each Other for Talks’ Failure,” New York Times, Sept. 15, 1970. Into weeks: “Auto Workers Hear the Drums Again,” Time, Sept. 28, 1970; “G.M. Strike Impact Begins to Spread,” New York Times, Oct. 3, 1970; “Where the Strike Hurts,” Time, Oct. 27, 1970; “G.M. Strike Begins to Hurt Workers,” New York Times, Nov. 8, 1970. Morale: “Striking Auto Workers Attend Class,” New York Times, Oct. 18, 1970. Food stamps: “Where the Strike Hurts,” Time, Oct. 27, 1970. In losses: GM lost $77 million in the third quarter and $135 million in the fourth quarter, with the strike responsible for both deficits. See “GM Lists Quarterly Loss at Record $135-Million,” New York Times, Jan. 29, 1971. Suppliers and showrooms: “G.M. Strike Impact Begins to Spread,” New York Times, Oct. 3, 1970. Strike fund: Serrin, 256; “The High Price of Peace in Detroit,” Time, Nov. 23, 1970. Suddenly intensified: “Auto Negotiators Focus on Pay Issue,” New York Times, Nov. 10, 1970; “General Motors and Auto Union Press for Settlement,” New York Times, Nov. 11, 1970. An agreement: Serrin, 266–273; “General Motors and Union Reach Terms for Pact,” New York Times, Nov. 12, 1970.
Sparred primarily: All details on the GM and UAW offers are from various news reports, including “Issues of Strike at G.M.,” New York Times, Sept. 16, 1970. “Less than equitable”: “Car Pact Expires: U.A.W. and Company Blame Each Other for Talks’ Failure,” New York Times, Sept. 15, 1970.
Back pay: “Collision Course in Detroit,” Time, Sept. 14, 1970. “Extreme”: “Union to Strike G.M. at Midnight if Pay Talks Fail,” New York Times, Sept. 14, 1970. “Grocery bills”: “Progress-Sharing Can Mean Industrial Peace” by C. E. Wilson, Reader’s Digest, Sept. 1952. “Piss on”: Serrin, 20.
Final contract: “General Motors and Union Reach Terms For Pact,” New York Times, Nov. 12, 1970; “The High Price of Peace in Detroit,” Time, Nov. 23, 1970; Serrin, 264; “Significance of the UAW Strike Against General Motors Corporation in 1970” by Irvin Bluestone, UAW. “Look forward to”: “The Grueling Life on the Line,” Time, Sept. 28, 1970.
“Crippling blow”: “The Early Retirement Time Bomb,” Nation’s Business, Feb. 1, 1971. Also see “Economic Implications of the Automobile Strike,” American Institute for Economic Research, Sept. 28, 1970. More expense: Lowenstein, 32, 36, 40–42. Out of control: Figures are from “Price Stability—An Attainable Goal?” an address by James M. Roche at the St. Louis Chamber of Commerce Salute Luncheon, Feb. 20, 1970, UAW. No outlier: “Fringe Benefits Hit Record High,” Nation’s Business, Sept. 1968. Would grow: “The Fringe Fever Keeps Rising,” U.S. News & World Report, Oct. 25, 1976; “Hidden Raises: Those ‘Fringes’ Keep on Growing,” U.S. News & World Report, Oct. 31, 1977. “Promise too much”: “Why Bigger Pensions Will Be Harder to Come By,” U.S. News & World Report, March 15, 1976. Also see “The Funding of Negotiated Pension Plans” by Robert C. Kryvicky, Transactions of Society of Actuaries, Vol. 33, 1981.
Jacked up: Serrin, 288. Also see “Car Price Rises Anticipate Pact,” New York Times, Sept. 20, 1970. “Fantastic victory”: “Settlement at G.M. Revives ‘Progress Sharing,’” New York Times, Nov. 15, 1971. Also see “Significance of the UAW Strike Against General Motors Corporation in 1970” by Irvin Bluestone, UAW. “Beyond the control”: “G.M. Settlement and Inflation,” New York Times, Nov. 19, 1971.
It denounced: Serrin, 277–278; “Pay and Price Rises Peril Economy: Nixon Aides,” Chicago Tribune, Dec. 2, 1970. Also see Lowenstein, 36–37. “If everyone”: Second Inflation Alert, Council of Economic Advisers, Dec. 1, 1970, UAW. Set a pattern: Serrin, 295–296; Wells, Economist in an Uncertain World, 70–71. Had doubled: Serrin, 296. The trend would continue. See “For 5 Million—An ‘Inflation Cushion,’ U.S. News & World Report, Sept. 29, 1975. Spillover: Rosenfeld, 74–79; “How Top Nonunion Companies Manage Employees,” Harvard Business Review, Sept./Oct. 1981. White-collar employees: “Occupational Salary Levels for White-Collar Workers,” Monthly Labor Review, Oct. 1982.
Still rampant: Wholesale prices, in particular, were high, climbing at a 4.9 percent rate in the second quarter (Wells, Economist in an Uncertain World, 258). “Rules of economics”: Wells, Economist in an Uncertain World, 72. Also quoted, in part, in “The Nixon Shock,” Bloomberg Businessweek, Aug. 4, 2011. Also see “The Phillips Curve Falls Flat” by Gus Tyler, National Committee for Full Employment, 1977, UAW. Nowhere left: Yergin and Stanislaw, The Commanding Heights, 113. Committee for Economic Development: “A High-Level Call for Guidelines,” Time, Dec. 7, 1970. Ordered a freeze: See “Transcript of President’s Address on Moves to Deal With Economic Problems,” New York Times, Aug. 16, 1971. Also see Blinder, Economic Policy and the Great Stagflation, 25–35. Hadn’t meddled: “Dr. Nixon Prescribes Shock Therapy,” New York Times, Aug. 22, 1971. The quotation from the high-ranking government official is from this article.
President established: “Who’s Who on Pay Board, Price Commission,” Chicago Tribune, Oct. 23, 1971. The Pay Board and the Price Commission operated under the Cost of Living Council. Woodcock: The UAW president, along with other labor representatives, would quit Pay Board in 1972, saying that while wages had been rigidly controlled, corporate profits were allowed to soar. See Cowie, 151–152. 5.5 percent: “Key Member of Pay Board Envisions a Long Phase 2,” New York Times, Nov. 29, 1971; Wells, Economist in an Uncertain World, 82. “Psychology of inflation”: “The Pay Board: An Inside Look,” New York Times, April 2, 1972. Consumer prices: They were rising at only a 3.4 percent annual rate during the second half of 1972. See Wells, Economist in an Uncertain World, 90. Dollar into gold: Greider, Secrets of the Temple, 334–340; Rickards, Currency Wars, 82–91; “The Nixon Shock,” Bloomberg Businessweek, Aug. 4, 2011; Wells, Economist in an Uncertain World, 75–76. Since 1944: This was when the Bretton-Woods agreement was signed. Surcharge: See “The Nixon Shock After Forty Years: The Import Surcharge Revisited” by Douglas A. Irwin, World Trade Review, Vol. 12, No. 1, Jan. 2013.
Pumping more money: Greider, Secrets of the Temple, 342–344; Wells, Economist in an Uncertain World, 84. Output took off: GNP grew at 7 percent in 1972, compared with 5.5 percent in 1971 (Wells, Economist in an Uncertain World, 258). Unemployment: The jobless rate declined to 5.6 percent in 1972 (and 5.3 percent in the fourth quarter) from 5.9 percent in 1971. Also see “Not Enough Jobs,” Time, Oct. 9, 1972. Manipulation: Friedman and Levantrosser, Richard M. Nixon: Politician, President, Administrator, 232–233; Samuelson, The Good Life and Its Discontents, 96; Madrick, Age of Greed, 52, 58–68. Landslide: Nixon won with 60.7 percent of the popular vote. “People can see”: “Issues ’72: Nixon v. McGovern on Taxes, Prices, Jobs,” Time, Oct. 30, 1972.
Permanent crutch: Wells, Economist in an Uncertain World, 104. Scaled them back: Blinder, Economic Policy and the Great Stagflation, 108–110; “A New Investigation on the Impact of Wage and Price Controls,” Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis Quarterly Review, Spring 1978. “Time to return”: “Phase IV: Controls, Because of Shortages,” an address by Richard C. Gerstenberg before the Financial Executives Institute, Oct. 22, 1973, found in Vital Speeches of the Day. 9 percent: The Consumer Price Index rose 8.8 percent for 1973 (Wells, Economist in an Uncertain World, 259). Reacting to: Greider, Secrets of the Temple, 339–340, 344; “1973–74 Oil Crisis,” part of “Slaying the Dragon of Debt,” a research project by the Regional Oral History Office of the Bancroft Library at the University of California at Berkeley; Shojai, The New Global Oil Market, 105–106. In 1974: The Consumer Price Index increased 12.2 percent for the year; the Wholesale Price Index rose 21.3 percent (Wells, Economist in an Uncertain World, 259).
Tripped up: “Economic Considerations Regarding the First Oil Shock, 1973–1974” by Livia Ilie, May 2006, posted in the Munich Personal RePEc Archive (mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/6431/1/MPRA_paper_6431.pdf). Other factors helped trigger the recession, including rising food prices and contractionary monetary and fiscal policies (Blinder, Economic Policy and the Great Stagflation, 35–39). More calamitous: By most measures the recession was the most serious since 1937. See “The Recession and Recovery of 1973–1976” by Victor Zarnowitz and Geoffrey H. Moore, National Bureau of Economic Research, Oct. 1977 (nber.org/chapters/c9101). Stock market: The S&P 500 fell 45.7 percent from January 1973 to December 1974. See “Stock Market Crashes and Their Aftermath: Implications for Monetary Policy” by Frederic S. Mishkin and Eugene N. White, Asset Price Bubbles Conference, April 23, 2002. 8.5 percent: It would hit 8.6 percent in March 1975, when the recession was officially declared over. Twice that big: Green, The World of the Worker, 236. Different names: “Can Capitalism Survive?” Time, July 14, 1975. “Misery Index”: “The Brookings Institution’s Arthur Okun—Father of the ‘Misery Index’” by Ron Nessen, Brookings Institution, Dec. 17, 2008. For a different view of stagflation and how to fix it, see Weitzman, The Share Economy.
New industry: “A History of the Outplacement Industry, 1960–1997,” a doctoral dissertation by Martha A. Redstrom-Plourd, Virginia Polytechnic Institute, 1998. Had laid off: “The Recession: Gloomy Holidays—And Worse Ahead,” Time, Dec. 9, 1974. Also see “Auto Workers: Reducing Work Time” by Howard Young, Nov. 16, 1976, UAW. Several thousand: From the testimony of Richard Brewer, GM’s director of pension plans, in Sprague v. General Motors, US District Court, Eastern District of Michigan, 90-CV-70010 (1993). There were 3,245 special early retirements at the company in 1974. “Emotionally charged”: Testimony from Sprague v. General Motors, US District Court, Eastern District of Michigan, 90-CV-70010 (1993).
Now asked this: “Can Capitalism Survive?” Time, July 14, 1975.
Profit margins: Figures (Samuelson, The Good Life and Its Discontents, 114) are based on US Commerce Department data for nonfinancial firms (all corporations excluding banks, insurance companies, securities houses, and the like). “What oats are”: “The Importance of Profits and Free Enterprise” an address by Richard C. Gerstenberg to the NAM Congress of American Industry, Dec. 13, 1971, LBP. Would pinpoint: See, for example, “A Retrospective Look at the U.S. Productivity Growth Resurgence” by Dale W. Jorgenson, Mun S. Ho, and Kevin J. Stiroh, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Feb. 2007. For a different take, see “A Retrospective on the Postwar Productivity Slowdown” by William Nordhaus, Yale University. Less than half: Friedman, The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth, 197. He notes that the average annual growth in labor productivity, from 1948 to 1973, of 2.9 percent declined to 1.4 percent over the next twenty years. Also see Melman, Profits Without Production, 164. Possible explanations: “The U.S. Productivity Slowdown: What the Experts Say” by William E. Cullison, Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, July/Aug. 1989; Magaziner and Reich, Minding America’s Business, 41–59.
Stopped investing: Hopper and Hopper, 203–207. Also see Melman, 169–170. For a counterview, see Magaziner and Reich, 45–46. Research and development: Melman, 170–171. For a counterview, see Baumol, Blinder, and Wolff, Downsizing in America, 12. “Coasted off”: This quotation and the one from the executive later in the paragraph are from “Managing Our Way to Economic Decline,” Harvard Business Review, July/Aug. 1980. The article notes that American spending on R&D as a percentage of sales in research-intensive industries had by the mid-1970s dropped to about half its level of the early 1960s.
America welcomed: Brenner, 45. Also see “Report of the National Identification Committee,” General Motors Board of Directors, April 3, 1961, CWP. They provided: In addition to providing markets for export, overseas locations also offered American companies attractive investment opportunities (Brenner, 59). And Lynn (End of the Line, 5) notes that US government leaders “encouraged corporations to entwine America’s economy with other industrial nations” so as to “make the West’s system of production more efficient to better serve the common struggle against the Soviet Union.” To that point, also see Prestowitz, Trading Places, 490. On their head: Webber and Rigby, The Golden Age Illusion, 49. Their own: See “Manufacturing Innovation: Lessons from the Japanese Auto Industry” by Michael A. Cusumano, MIT Sloan Management Review, Fall 1988. Also see Uchitelle, 47; Cappelli, 75–76; Lynn, End of the Line, 91–92. Leapfrogged America: Brenner, 45. Also see Chandler, Amatori, and Hikino, Big Business and the Wealth of Nations, 89–101; 307–335. Other countries: Ross and Trachte, Global Capitalism, 105; Piore and Sabel, The Second Industrial Divide, 179. Since 1888: Magill, Chronology of Twentieth-Century History: Business and Commerce, Vol. 2, 1036–1038; Hopper and Hopper, 206; Lynn, End of the Line, 25. Trade deficit: US Trade in Goods and Services—Balance of Payments Basis, US Census Bureau (census.gov/foreign-trade/statistics/historical/gands.pdf). Also noted in “The Forty-Year Slump” by Harold Meyerson, The American Prospect, Sept./Oct. 2013.
Cost 45 percent less: Calculated from figures in Halberstam, The Reckoning, 308. Also see “Imports and the Future of the U.S. Automobile Indsutry” by Jose A. Gomez-Ibanez and David Harrison Jr., The American Economic Review, Vol. 72, No. 2, May 1982. Twice as many: Buchholz, From Here to Economy, 100; Chandler, Amatori, and Hikino, 324. 100,000 Hondas: Keller, Rude Awakening, 50. Quick to point out: “Price Stability—An Attainable Goal?” an address by James M. Roche at the St. Louis Chamber of Commerce Salute Luncheon, Feb. 20, 1970, UAW. 60 percent: “The Comparative Status of the US Auto Industry: A Study of the Influences of Technology in Determining International Industrial Competitive Advantage,” National Academy of Sciences, 1982. Pull concessions: “We Are Driven: Life on the Fast Line at Datsun,” Mother Jones, August 1982.
“The unrest”: Cowie, 72–73.
“Fundamental breakpoint”: The Forty-Year Slump” by Harold Meyerson, The American Prospect, Sept./Oct. 2013. Also see Friedman, 199.
Driven in part: Lynn, End of the Line, 120. Washington’s aim: Lynn, End of the Line, 90–93. In foreign factories: Harrison and Bluestone, The Great U-Turn, 26–27. To sell back: Van Horn and Schaffner, Work in America, 49. Also see Harrison and Bluestone, 30. By the early 1970s, about one-third of auto industry investment was being made abroad (Lash and Urry, The End of Organized Capitalism, 164). For a history of how American companies had invested abroad throughout the twentieth century, at least to some degree, see Lynn, End of the Line, 94–96. “Stop foreigners”: General Electric News, Oct. 1972, ILIR. 30,000 jobs: Kirsch, In the Wake of the Giant, 13. Also see Nash, From Tank Town to High Tech, 114.
Larger and larger share: “Service Industries and Economic Performance,” US Department of Commerce, Economics and Statistics Administration, March 1996. Also see Kalleberg, Good Jobs, Bad Jobs, 46–47. 60 percent: Davis, Managed by the Markets, 2. “Post-industrial society”: Bell, The Coming of Post-Industrial Society, 15. “Poorest paid”: All information on the Coca-Cola symposium, including speaker transcripts, is from CC.
“New class”: Sobel (The White-Collar Working Class, 132) also notes that “the class and work situations of white collar and blue collar labor have blurred.”
Had joined: “Employment History of J. Paul Austin,” RWP. Also see Pendergrast, 274–275.
“Find himself liberated”: Toffler, Future Shock, 125.
“Talmudic fashion”: “Inflation and Recession: Attacking the Double-Trouble,” an address by Philip M. Klutznick before CED trustees and guests, Jan. 9, 1975, found in Vital Speeches of the Day. Real-estate developer: See his obituary, “Philip M. Klutznick, 92, Builder and a Leader in Jewish Affairs,” New York Times, Aug. 17, 1999.
Day’s prompting: Linder, 207; Waterhouse, 101. Had merged: The Business Roundtable was formed in 1972 by the merger of three groups: the Construction Users Anti-Inflation Roundtable; the March Group, which was made up of a small number of CEOs, including GE’s Fred Borch, who met to consider public policy issues; and the Labor Law Study Committee, which had been cofounded by GE’s Virgil Day. For more on the Labor Law Study Committee and its early efforts to help keep employers free of unions, see Gross, Broken Promise, 200–209, 217–224. Now surpassed: Mizruchi, 171–179; “Rehabilitation Project: Once-Mighty CED Panel of Executives Seeks a Revival, Offers Advice to Carter,” Wall Street Journal, Dec. 17, 1976; Gross, Broken Promise, 235; Cowie, 231–232. Also see Hacker and Pierson, 116–136.
Different spot: Mizruchi, 164–168; Waterhouse, 93. “Larger public interest”: Mizruchi, 177. “To a weakening”: Mizruch, 179. Self-interested: Mizruchi, 157; Phillips-Fein, 192–199; Judis, 167–168.
Introduced: For background on Humphrey-Hawkins, see Uchitelle, 124–128. Virtual copy: “The Employment Act of 1946: Some History Notes” by G. J. Santoni, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, Nov. 1986. Joined with: Waterhouse, 146.
Marshaled successfully: Waterhouse, 146; Moody, 138; Vogel, Fluctuating Fortunes, 157–158. Completely overhauled: The law ultimately signed by President Carter in 1978 was, in fact, a shell of the original bill. “Americans desire”: From testimony before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, May 10, 1978. “Democratic government”: Schriftgiesser, 96–97.
Close relationship: Allen, Secret Formula, 364; Pendergrast, 309–310; Hays, 60; Louis and Yazijian, The Cola Wars, 273–296. “Our crowd likes”: Quoted in Allen, Secret Formula, 364; Pendergrast, 310. Ever-wider group: “Telling Jimmy About Jobs,” Executive View by Marshall Loeb, Time, June 12, 1978. As in “God”: “Telling Jimmy About Jobs,” Executive View by Marshall Loeb, Time, June 12, 1978; “GE’s Welch Powering Firm Into Global Competitor,” Washington Post, Sept. 23, 1984.
Was born: All biographical details on Jones and his family are from a 2012 interview by the author with Jones’s son, Keith; “Reginald Harold Jones, 86, Dies; Led General Electric,” New York Times, Jan. 2, 2004; Welch, Jack: Straight from the Gut, 80.
Chain-smoking: Levinson and Rosenthal, CEO: Corporate Leadership in Action, 22. “Horatio Alger story”: From a 2012 interview by the author with Jones’s son, Keith.
Giving advice: As reflected in papers found in Charles L. Schultze Correspondence Files and White House Central File, JCPL. High levels: Consumer prices were running at an annual rate of 6.5 percent in 1977 and 7.6 percent in 1978, while annual unemployment in those years stood at 7.1 percent and 6.1 percent, respectively. Energy crisis: “Oil Shock of 1978–79,” Federal Reserve History (federalreservehistory.org/Events/DetailView/40); Greider, Secrets of the Temple, 13–14; Shojai, 106–108; Piore and Sabel, 178–179; Madrick, 152.
Now assumed: Greider, Secrets of the Temple, 15–17. Government calculated: Figures are noted in Greider, Secrets of the Temple, 101. “Inflation doesn’t slow”: Greider, Secrets of the Temple, 17.
“Actually got numbers”: “Carter’s ‘Crisis of Confidence’ Speech, American Experience, (pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/general-article/carter-crisis-speech/). Also see Cowie, 301–305.
“In a nation”: Speech transcript found at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center (millercenter.org/president/speeches/speech-3402).
Brief bump: Greider, Secrets of the Temple, 15; Cowie, 306; Madrick, 154. Accused him: Carter’s ‘Crisis of Confidence’ Speech, American Experience, (pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/general-article/carter-crisis-speech/).
229–230 Had no faith: Biven, Jimmy Carter’s Economy, 28; Greider, Secrets of the Temple, 182. “Thick as the carpets”: Quoted in Biven, 26. Out to attack: Greider, Secrets of the Temple, 75–123; Samuelson, The Great Inflation and Its Aftermath, 119–120; Biven, 307–309. Quite difficult: Greider, Secrets of the Temple, 124–151, 364; Samuelson, The Great Inflation and Its Aftermath, 123–124; Madrick, 166. Since World War II: Biven, 24. Stopped digging: Biven, 25.
Pushed forward: Greider, Secrets of the Temple, 181–185; Samuelson, The Great Inflation and Its Aftermath, 125–126; Biven, 319. People cut up: Greider, Secrets of the Temple, 185. Visa lost: Samuelson, The Great Inflation and Its Aftermath, 126; Greider, Secrets of the Temple, 186. To the dismay: Greider, Secrets of the Temple, 186. “Into the tank”: Greider, Secrets of the Temple, 187. Also see Madrick, 167. Another recession: It had officially started in January 1980 and would last until July. Near 8 percent: It hit 7.8 percent in July 1980. 13 percent: In July 1980, it was running at a 13.13 percent year-over-year rate.
“Finds itself challenged”: Quoted in O’Boyle, 50; Sherman and Tichy, 45. For details on these underlying trends, see “The Productivity Slowdown: Causes and Policy Responses” Background for Statement of Alice M. Rivlin before the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Congressional Budget Office, June 1, 1981. Also see the Business Roundtable’s position papers on capital formation sent by Jones on July 6, 1977, to Charles Schultze, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, JCPL.
“President of Japan”: “Steel Blues,” Newsweek, Oct. 3, 1977. 10,000 people: Buss and Redburn, Shutdown at Youngstown, 1. Also see Uchitelle, 131–133, 135–137. 50,000 jobs: Fraser, The Age of Acquiescence, 224. One thousand factories: Buss and Redburn, 2. 900,000 a year: Harrison and Bluestone, 37.
“Pathetic mausoleums”: Fraser, The Age of Acquiescence, 226. “Older folks mourn”: Rudacille, Roots of Steel, 15. “America uses things”: “America’s Fastest Shrinking City: The Story of Youngstown, Ohio” by Sean Posey, Hampton Institute, June 18, 2013. Posey is quoting from William Serrin’s 1992 book Homestead: The Glory and Tragedy of an American Steel Town. Fates befell: The cities mentioned here are among sixty-five “older industrial cities” that as of 2007 were “still struggling to boost their economies and increase opportunity for the over 16 million people that call these places home,” according to the Brookings Institution report “Restoring Prosperity: The State Role in Revitalizing America’s Older Industrial Cities.” Hardest hit: Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged, 39–46.
Bruce Springsteen: See Cowie, 207–209, 337–338, 342; “Born to Run and the Decline of the American Dream” by Joshua Zeitz, The Atlantic, Aug. 24, 2015.
“Only Herbert Hoover”: Biven, 33.
Jones had offered: These recommendations were contained in a Dec. 20, 1977, draft paper that Jones had his team write for President Carter at the behest of Treasury Secretary Michael Blumenthal, JCPL.
Was trounced: Reagan won with nearly 51 percent of the popular vote and nearly 91 percent of the electoral vote. Formally told: Welch, 87.
Been raised: Welch, 6–7. Union man: From a 2012 interview by the author with Welch; O’Boyle, 47. Five foot eight: Tichy and Sherman, 18. To captain: Welch, 9. Then landed: Welch, 14–17; Tichy and Sherman, 68.
Almost left: Welch, 21; Tichy and Sherman, 69. “From differentiation”: Welch, 25. “Dinks”: Tichy and Sherman, 48.
GE persuaded Welch: Welch, 24–25. General manager: Welch, 36; Sherman and Tichy, 70. Vice president: Welch, 43. Group executive: Welch, 49; Sherman and Tichy, 74. “Constructive conflict”: Welch, 42; Sherman and Tichy, 70. “Anti-establishment”: Welch, 42. Consumer sector: Welch, 65; Sherman and Tichy, 75. Vice chairmen: Welch, 81.
Thinking about: Welch, 47. “Wasn’t stupid”: From a 2012 interview by the author with Welch.
Arrogance and rudeness: Welch, 42; Lane, Jacked Up, 23. Two competitors: One was John Burlingame, age fifty-eight. The other was Ed Hood, fifty. A bad temper: Welch, 42–43; Lane, 113–114. Chewed gum: Lane, 205. Bit his nails: “GE’s Welch Powering Firm Into Global Competitor,” Washington Post, Sept. 23, 1984. “Stuttering overachiever”: Lane, 278. Middle finger raised: Lane, 129. For more on Welch as a maverick, see Rothschild, 190–193; “General Electric: Reg Jones and Jack Welch” by Christopher A. Bartlett, Francis J. Aguilar, and Kenton W. Elderkin, Harvard Business School case study, June 1991; Welch, 87; O’Boyle, 46. For more background on the process to pick Welch, see Vancil, Passing the Baton, 187–194; Tichy and Sherman, 62–64; “Reginald Jones Discusses Selecting Jack Welch as the New CEO of GE,” “Talking History,” recorded June 12, 2000 (albany.edu/talkinghistory/archivalaudio/geohp-reginald-jones-zahavi-6–12–2000(selection).mp3).
Had championed: Welch, 77; O’Boyle, 63. “Street kid”: Welch, 80. “Distinctive set”: O’Boyle, 42. Ceiling tiles: Welch 49. Welch also took note of this telling detail in a 2012 interview by the author. Also see Tichy and Sherman, 50–51. At a start-up: See “GE’s Welch Powering Firm Into Global Competitor,” Washington Post, Sept. 23, 1984. “Able to select”: Vancil, 194. Also see Rothschild, 183–186.
Supply of money: From “Growing Fast in a Slow-Growth Economy,” Welch’s Dec. 8, 1981, speech to the financial community at the Hotel Pierre, New York. The speech is included in Welch, 447–451. Statistical comparisons: From a 2012 interview by the author with Welch. “No room”: Welch, 449. “Fix it”: Welch, 109; Tichy and Sherman, 114; O’Boyle, 70.
“Dare to try”: Welch, 450.
Blah, blah, blah: See Lane, 156. Many years: Tichy and Sherman, 187–189, 272–273. Thousands and thousands: Tichy and Sherman, 273. “Also can liberate”: Lane, 24.
First flattening: Tichy and Sherman, 291. Welch noted that before you can really change a company’s culture, “you’ve first got to do the hard structural work. Take out the layers. Pull up the weeds. Scrape off the rust.” Managers made up: Tomasko, Downsizing, 1–2. “Layer on layer”: From a 2012 interview by the author with Welch.
“Guy’s shirt collar”: Tichy and Sherman, 57. Refined the system: Borch introduced strategic planning into GE and moved the company from being organized around individual product lines into strategic business units. During his tenure, Jones announced a “sector” organization structure, introducing a new level of management that represented a macrobusiness or industry area. For more on these changes, see “GE… We Bring Good Things to Life” by James L. Heskett, Harvard Business School case study, revised Feb. 9, 2000; “Jack Welch: General Electric’s Revolutionary” by Joseph L. Bower, Harvard Business School case study, revised April 12, 1994. Also see Rothschild, 149–182. “Dense impenetrability”: Tichy and Sherman, 60.
“Fired them all”: From a 2012 interview by the author with Welch. Also see Rothschild, 207–208. Department itself: Tichy and Sherman, 186; Lane, 69. He dumped: From a 2012 interview by the author with Welch. He pared: Tichy and Sherman, 102. “You asshole”: Lane, 281. “Fucking idiot”: Lane, 28. Never cared: Lane, 185. To like him: Lane, 57. Shark painting: Lane, 115. “Sent home”: Lane, 115, 312. To about 900: Tichy and Sherman, 102.
GE eliminated: O’Boyle, 32; these figures were derived by comparing employment totals in 1978–1979 and the spring of 1996, as reported by local newspapers in the seven cities. Also cited by Greenhouse, 85. “Where our fathers”: “News of Layoffs Dulls G.E. Centennial in Schenectady,” New York Times, Nov. 26, 1986.
Another recession: It would officially last from July 1981 until November 1982. Hell-bent: Greider, Secrets of the Temple, 431–432; Samuelson, The Great Inflation and Its Aftermath, 106–107. Adding greatly: Greider, Secrets of the Temple, 448, 530. “Have to suffer”: Greider, Secrets of the Temple, 419; Samuelson, The Great Inflation and Its Aftermath, 116. Reagan had said this in 1978.
Almost 11 percent: It was 10.8 percent in November and December 1982. In autos: Greider, Secrets of the Temple, 454. Went bankrupt: Greider, Secrets of the Temple, 455. Also see Cappelli, 77. 20 million: Greider, Secrets of the Temple, 454. Homebuilders sent: Samuelson, The Great Inflation and Its Aftermath, 128. Auto dealers: Greider, Secrets of the Temple, 461; Samuelson, The Great Inflation and Its Aftermath, 128.
For the year: Inflation statistics are from inflation.eu/inflation-rates/united-states/historic-inflation/cpi-inflation-united-states.aspx. “Long nightmare”: Greider, Secrets of the Temple, 554. Reagan said this in January 1983 as part of his message to Congress transmitting his fiscal 1984 federal budget. The longest: It would last for ninety-two months.
Until 1987: The jobless rate for 1986 was 7 percent. In 1987 it was 6.2 percent. Having peaked: This was when 19.6 million employees worked in the sector, representing 22 percent of the labor force. See “Manufacturing Jobs for the Future,” Congressional Joint Economic Committee, Dec. 2013; “The Surprisingly Swift Decline of U.S. Manufacturing Employment” by Justin R. Pierce and Peter K. Schott, Dec. 2012. Also see Uchitelle, 139. Had failed: Cowie, 288–296; Rosenfeld, 25–27. Legitimatizing the replacement: McCartin, Collision Course, 344. Rosenfeld (84–87) points out that Reagan stressed his support for private-sector work stoppages even as he rejected the right of government employees to walk off the job—a view backed by a 1971 Supreme Court decision that federal employees have no legal right to strike. (See “Strikers and the Law,” New York Times, Aug. 5, 1981. Yet despite that, the air-traffic controllers dispute did set a pattern through the private sector as well. Also see Greenhouse, 81–82; Uchitelle, 39, 142; Madrick, 171; Reich, Saving Capitalism, 129. “Recast the crimes”: The former consultant was Martin Levitt. Quoted in Greenhouse, 247. Reagan accelerated: Harrison and Bluestone, 95; Uchitelle, 129–131. Also see Madrick, 172; Stiglitz, The Roaring Nineties, 101–103. Two decades following: “Deregulation and the Labor Market” by James Peoples, The Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 12, No. 3, Summer 1998. In telecommunications, the decline was from 55 percent to 29 percent; in airlines, it was from 45 percent to 36 percent. The figures are for the period 1978 to 1996. Also see Greenhouse, 82–83.
Combination of tactics: Rosenfeld, 24–25; Harrison and Bluestone, 48–50; Sweeney and Nussbaum, Solutions for the New Work Force, 44–46; Osterman, Securing Prosperity, 65; “No Holds Barred: The Intensification of Employer Opposition to Organizing” by Kate Bronfenbrenner, Economic Policy Institute, Briefing Paper No. 235, May 20, 2009. “Unions responded”: Rosenfeld, 24. Whereas labor: “National Labor Board elections and results: 1936–1988,” Sutch and Carter, 2–352. Also see Wunnava, The Changing Role of Unions, 330. Wage concessions: McCartin, 345; Harrison and Bluestone, 39–43. Also see Feldstein, American Economic Policy in the 1980s, 132–133. 40 percent: Harrison and Bluestone, 40.
“Social revolution”: From the president’s January 25, 1988, State of the Union address, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum. Since 1960: Harrison and Bluestone, x. With pensions: “History of Pension Plans,” Employee Benefit Research Institute, March 1998. Specifically, 46 percent of private-sector workers had some kind of pension plan coverage in 1980; that number declined to 43 percent by 1990. Also see “The Fall in Private Pension Coverage in the United States” by David E. Bloom and Richard B. Freeman, The American Economic Review, Vol. 82, No. 2, May 1992. To go down: “Job-Based Health Insurance, 1977–1998: The Accidental System Under Scrutiny” by Jon R. Gabel, Health Affairs, Vol. 18, No. 6, Nov./Dec. 1999. The percentage of workers with health coverage from their employer went from 66.7 percent in 1977 to 63.9 percent in 1987. First time: “Employee Benefit Plans, 1975” by Martha Remy Yohalem, Social Security Bulletin, Nov. 1977.
Far different: Tomasko, 32. Imposing tariffs: Lynn, End of the Line, 76–77. Also see Glickman and Woodward, The New Competitors, 267–268. Nearly caught up: Locke, The Collapse of the American Management Mystique, 161. In the mid-1980s, he writes, the United States produced 21 percent of the world’s industrial output, while Japan produced 19 percent. Mitsubishi purchased: Lynn, End of the Line, 24–25. The deal was struck in Oct. 1989. “Subsidiary of Mitsubishi”: Lynn, End of the Line, 25. Also see Prestowitz, 68.
Period of stagnation: See, for instance, “The 1990s in Japan: A Lost Decade” by Fumio Hayashi and Edward Prescott, Review of Economic Dynamics, Vol. 5, No. 1, 2002. “Japan Problem”: Lynn, End of the Line, 26.
Routinely recall: Uchitelle, 24. Began tracking: “Job Displacement” by Lori G. Kletzer, University of California at Santa Cruz Department of Economics, Working Paper No. 388, Nov. 1997. Also see “Displaced Workers: Trends in the 1980s and Implications for the Future,” Congressional Budget Office, Feb. 1993; Uchitelle, 5. Had enacted: WARN was enacted on August 4, 1988, overriding President Reagan’s veto. See “The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN)” by Linda Levine, Congressional Research Service, Sept. 26, 2007. Uchitelle (138) notes that most companies have been able to slip through WARN’s “large loopholes or simply violate the law.” “Virtually all workers”: Doeringer, Turbulence in the American Workplace, 2.
Being taken on: Rosenbaum, Market Dominance, 100–103. Early retirement: Swasy, Changing Focus, 31. Three years later: Swasy, 33; Tomasko, 30; “A Bleak Picture at Kodak,” Newsweek, Feb. 24, 1986. Meant to streamline: “G.M. Sets Change Two Groups,” New York Times, Jan. 11, 1984. “Long-lived loyalties”: Keller, Rude Awakening, 116. “A global market”: Keller, Rude Awakening, 108. Gains in efficiency: “G.M. Sets Change Two Groups,” New York Times, Jan. 11, 1984; “GM Plans a Great Divide,” Newsweek, Jan. 9, 1984.
On and on: One survey found that 24 percent of companies experienced significant layoffs and 20 percent offered early retirement incentives between 1985 and 1987 (Doeringer, 143). At DuPont: Tomasko, xv. US Steel: Greenhouse, 80–81. AT&T slashed: “24,000 A.T.&T. Jobs to Be Eliminated from Systems Unit,” New York Times, Aug. 22, 1985. The next year: “A.T.&T. Will Cut 27,400 Jobs,” New York Times, Dec. 19, 1986. Ford jettisoned: “A.T.&T. and Ford Plan Huge Job Cuts,” New York Times, Aug. 25, 1985. Chevron shrank: “Staff Reduction of 12% Announced by Chevron,” New York Times, June 13, 1986.
Nearly 170,000: Tichy and Sherman, 23. Welch, 129, uses a different set of figures: “We went from 411,000 employees at the end of 1980 to 299,000 by the end of 1985. Of the 112,000 people who left the GE payroll, about 37,000 were in businesses we sold, but 81,000 people—or one in every five in our industrial businesses—lost their jobs for productivity reasons.” By 1986: Tichy and Sherman, 204. As many people: Data from the City Mayors Foundation. Didn’t count: Tichy and Sherman, 23.
He divested: Foster and Kaplan, Creative Destruction, 151. Also see Harrison and Bluestone, 36; Rothschild, 194–200. Demoralized employees: Tichy and Sherman, 111–112. “No sacred cows”: Foster and Kaplan, 151. He also bought: Tichy and Sherman, 29, 41. Including: Welch, 139–154; Tichy and Sherman, 150–153; Uchitelle, 133.
“Prior to”: “1,000 Jobs to Be Lost at Kidder,” New York Times, Dec. 5, 1987. The plan was: “General Electric—Consumer Electronics Group” by David J. Collis, Harvard Business School case study, revised May 26, 1989. One of six: O’Boyle, 96–97. In a swap with Thomson S.A., the French company got GE’s consumer electronics business; GE got Thomson’s medical-imaging equipment business. Also see Lynn, End of the Line, 73–77; Harrison and Bluestone, 37; Prestowitz, 352. “Be global”: Lynn, End of the Line, 77.
“Neutron Jack”: Newsweek was the first to give Welch this nickname, in 1982. “Time-tested”: Lane, 312. “The flamethrower”: Serrin, 34. Al Dunlap: See “Exit Bad Guy,” The Economist, June 18, 1988. Also see Cappelli, 85–90; Fraser, White-Collar Sweatshop, 183–185; Reich, Saving Capitalism, 122.
“Soft landings”: Lane, 179. Lane recounted: Lane, 183–184.
“Lean and compassionate”: “Jack Welch: GE’s Live Wire,” Newsweek, Dec. 23, 1985. Set aside: Tichy and Sherman, 89–90. “We gave people”: From a 2012 interview by the author with Welch.
Hated being tagged: Welch, 125, 129; “GE’s Welch Powering Firm Into Global Competitor,” Washington Post, Sept. 23, 1984. In productivity: See Tichy and Sherman, 30, 204. “A dead end”: Welch, 128. Also see Tichy and Sherman, 275–276; Davis, Managed by the Markets, 90–91; Greenhouse, 86; Cappelli, 25, 216.
Father walked out: The details on Hany’s early life are from a 2014 interview with him by Black Dirt Journal (blackdirtjournal.com/interviews/wilburhany/) and a 2016 interview with him by the author. “Finest all-around”: “Barnstorming: Kyger, Vitale Start Long Line of Tall Athletes,” The Pantagraph of Bloomington, Ill., Dec. 13, 2005.
Over that time: All details on Hany’s career, the activities at GE’s General Purpose Control Department, and direct quotations from those who worked there are drawn from the complete trial transcripts of Wilbur Hany, Delbert King and Vernon Brickey v. General Electric Co., US District Court, Central District of Illinois, 85–3556 and 86–3233 (1989); Donald W. Sobin, et al. v. General Electric Co., US District Court, Central District of Illinois, 86–3233, 85–3556, 86–3303 and 87–3173. Of parkland: See “Future for GE Employee Park Under Consideration,” The Pantagraph of Bloomington, Ill., Nov. 9, 2011.
“Turbocharged the process”: From a 2012 interview by the author with Conaty. Later in: “GE’s Talent Machine: The Making of a CEO” by Christopher A. Bartlett and Andrew N. McLean, Harvard Business School case study, revised Nov. 3, 2006. “Vitality curve”: Welch, 158–163. Also see “Forced Distribution Performance Evaluation Systems: Advantages, Disadvantages, and Keys to Implementation” by Susan M. Stewart, Melissa L. Gruys, and Maria Storm, Journal of Management & Organization, Vol. 16, No. 1, March 2010.
“Heart of the company”: Welch, 159. “A players”: Welch, 160, notes that the vitality curve doesn’t translate perfectly to his A-B-C evaluation of talent. Nonetheless, he himself uses these letter grades and the 20–70–10 distribution almost interchangeably in the book. “Losing an A”: Welch, 160.
“Think it’s cruel”: Welch, 161–162. Also quoted in Greenhouse, 86–87.
Followed his lead: “‘Rank and Yank’ Retains Vocal Fans,” Wall Street Journal, Jan. 31, 2012. Disapproved of: From a 2015 interview by the author with Joseph Maciariello of the Peter F. Drucker and Masatoshi Ito Graduate School of Management. For more on Drucker’s views about Welch, see Krames, Inside Drucker’s Brain, 83–89. Welch detested: At the 2010 World Business Forum in New York, journalist Alan Murray was interviewing Welch on stage. When he asked him about “rank and yank,” Welch shrieked, “Don’t say that!” Some worried: Many critics of the vitality curve make at least several of the points raised. See “Grades Are No Longer Just for Students: Forced Ranking, Discrimination, and the Quest to Attain a More Competent Workforce” by Meredith L. Myers, Seton Hall Law Review, Vol. 33, No. 3, 2003; “Getting Rid of the Bottom 10% Sounds Good, but…” by Edward E. Lawler III, Center for Effective Organizations, Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California, Jan. 2002; “Is This the Final Straw for Forced Ranking of Employee Performance?” by Howard Risher, TLNT, July 12, 2012. For a defense of Welch’s vitality curve, see “Why Performance Assessment Curves Often Bend the Wrong Way” by Ron Ashkenas, Forbes, Sept. 5, 2012. Also see Uchitelle, 143; Hopper and Hopper, 236. Cheat the system: Gleaned from interviews by the author with several former GE executives.
Watson was born: All details on Watson’s life and career, as well as direct quotations from him, are from a 2012 interview by the author.
New people: Mills, The IBM Lesson, 4.
“Most important”: Watson, A Business and Its Beliefs, 13. “Rank first”: Watson, 18. Also see Uchitelle, 26; Cappelli, 71. “Pissed me off”: Welch, 128.
Doyle told: This was as Watson remembered it.
“What I’m advocating”: Greider, Who Will Tell the People, 345.
“Never thought”: “Even ‘Company People’ Caught Up Age Battles,” Chicago Tribune, May 30, 1988.
Company appealed: A federal jury originally ruled against GE, determining that the company engaged in a pattern or routine practice of firing employees over the age of forty while it was cutting its workforce at the Bloomington plant. GE eventually settled eleven cases, including Hany’s. In 1992 a federal appeals court ruled in GE’s favor, when it found that the evidence used during trial was insufficient to show a pattern of discrimination. The final four cases were settled after the appeals court decision. See Delbert King and Vernon Brickey v. General Electric, 960 F.2d 617 (1992). Also see “Final Age Discrimination Suits Settled Out of Court; General Electric Avoids Trial in Peoria,” The Pantagraph of Bloomington, Ill., Dec. 21, 1994.
About 35 percent: “2 Faces of GE’s ‘Welchism’: One Dr. Jekyll, One Mr. Hyde,” Los Angeles Times, Jan. 12, 1988; 2016 interview by the author with former GE labor chief Dennis Rocheleau.
Into disrepair: Welch, 124. For a history of how Crotonville was used over the decades for various types of training, see “Re-Imagining Crotonville: Epicenter of GE’s Leadership Culture” by David Gray, IMD, 2012. “Jack’s Cathedral”: Welch, 124. Biggest challenges: Tichy and Sherman, 160–161. The intent: “GE’s Crotonville: A Staging Ground for Corporate Revolution” by Noel Tichy, The Academy of Management Executive, Vol. 3, No. 2, May 1989. “Thanks to Welch”: “Will the Legacy Live on?” by Warren Bennis, Harvard Business Review, Feb. 2002. Also see Ulrich, Kerr, and Ashkenas, The GE Work-Out, 7. Also see Rothschild, 210–211.
251–252 “Re-create Crotonville”: Tichy and Sherman, 237. Also see Rothschild, 212. Launched a process: For details on how Work-Out is to be implemented, see Ulrich, Kerr, and Ashkenas, 23–46; Tichy and Sherman, 242. “Hear their ideas”: Tichy and Sherman, 301. Within five years: Tichy and Sherman, 240.
Brown paper bag: All details and the quotation in this paragraph are from “GE Keeps Those Ideas Coming,” Fortune, Aug. 12, 1991.
To dinner: From a 2012 interview by the author with Welch. “Relations were good”: From a 2012 interview by the author with Welch. “Taken care of”: From a 2013 interview by the author with Santamoor. His wife had gotten sick in the late 1990s.
“Get rid of them”: From a 2012 interview by the author with Welch. “Run all over us”: From a 2014 interview by the author with Rocheleau.”Automate, emigrate”: “A Brief History of UE Bargaining With GE: Seventy Years of Struggle,” United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of America.
Welch would contend: From a 2012 interview by the author with Welch. Number of walkouts: Rosenfeld, 88–99. “A friend”: From a 2013 interview by the author with Santamoor.
Less than 3.5 percent: See “Union Panels Back G.E. Accords for 7% Raise,” New York Times, June 30, 1982; “Union Role Provided in New G.E. Contract,” New York Times, July 4, 1985; “Major Collective Bargaining Settlements in Private Industry in 1988,” Monthly Labor Review, May 1989. Less than 2 percent: “Major Collective Bargaining Settlements in Private Industry in 1988,” Monthly Labor Review, May 1989. Inflation running: Inflation.eu/inflation-rates/united-states/historic-inflation/cpi-inflation-united-states.aspx. Forced them to fight: “Job Security a Mirage for Unions Despite Wage Concessions of 80’s,” New York Times, Jan. 9, 1989. 20 percent: “Union Membership and Coverage Database from the CPS,” Unionstats.com. “Angry affairs”: O’Boyle, 361.
“Welchism”: “2 Faces of GE’s ‘Welchism’: One Dr. Jekyll, One Mr. Hyde,” Los Angeles Times, Jan. 12, 1988. “The hot seat”: Jan. 26, 1988, letter from Boulware to Welch, LBP.
Earnings rising: Tichy and Sherman, 372–385. “Unlocked the secrets”: “Roberto Goizueta and Jack Welch: The Wealth Builders,” Fortune, Dec. 11, 1995. For a critical assessment of GE’s financial performance under Welch, see “General Electric Performance over a Half Century: Evaluation of Effects of Leadership and Other Strategic Factors by Quantitative Case Analysis” by Richard H. Franke, Anthony J. Mento, Steve M. Prumo, and Timothy W. Edlund, International Journal of Business, 2007.