Lithograph published by Currier & Ives depicting the explosion on the USS Princeton. Image: Wikimedia Commons

                                    -- Labor Movement History--1950s-

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In 1940, New Jersey's child labor laws were tightened. The new laws mandated that children remain in school until age 16 and required all under 18 to obtain working papers from school supervisors or teachers, ending the prior practice which allowed those 14 and over who had completed eighth grade or those 15 and over who had finished sixth grade to work full-time.

In spite of labor successes in organizing New Jersey workers, its ability to sustain higher wages was undercut as large employers sought cheaper labor elsewhere. For example, when the RCA plant in Camden organized, RCA opened a new production center in the non-union town of Bloomington, Indiana. And when the Bloomington plant unionized, RCA opened a new factory in the open-shop town of Memphis, Tennessee. For much of the 20th century, New Jersey labor faced the real or veiled negotiating threat of plants relocating to other states or countries.

As industry developed on a massive scale in the US, the AFL continued to organize along craft lines, leading Wobblies to dub it the “American Separation of Labor.” As early as the 1890s, union militants were demanding a fundamental change in the organizing practices and organizational structure of the AFL. As US capitalism continued to develop and concentrate into enormous corporations and monopolies, it only made sense for the labor movement to organize itself accordingly in order to be able to effectively organize the new mass industries.

- Taft–Hartley Act

was one of more than 250 union-related bills pending in both houses of Congress in 1947.[5] After World War II, about a quarter of the US workforce was unionized, and concerns arose how the post-War economy could adjust to the full employment which prevailed as a result of military spending and how returning veterans would be absorbed into the workforce.
As a response to the rising union movement and Cold War hostilities, the bill could be seen as a response by business to the post–World War II labor upsurge of 1946. During the year after V-J Day, more than five million American workers were involved in strikes, which lasted on average four times longer than those during the war.[7]
The Taft–Hartley Act was seen as a means of demobilizing the labor movement by imposing limits on labor's ability to strike and by prohibiting radicals from their leadership.[8] The law was promoted by large business lobbies including the National Association of Manufacturers.[9]

​The amendments enacted in Taft–Hartley added a list of prohibited actions, or unfair labor practices, on the part of unions to the NLRA, which had previously only prohibited unfair labor practices committed by employers. The Taft–Hartley Act prohibited jurisdictional strikes, wildcat strikes, solidarity or political strikes, secondary boycotts, secondary and mass picketing, closed shops, and monetary donations by unions to federal political campaigns. It also required union officers to sign non-communist affidavits with the government. Union shops were heavily restricted, and states were allowed to pass right-to-work laws that outlawed closed union shops. Furthermore, the executive branch of the federal government could obtain legal strikebreaking injunctions if an impending or current strike imperiled the national health or safety

Delegates to 1946 CIO Convention in Atlantic City on boardwalk front of Convention Hall. Image: University of Massachusetts

Post-war labor unrest

After the end of World War II, labor unrest escalated as issues surfaced that were deferred during the conflict for the sake of the war effort. . During the year after the war endeed, over five million US workers were involved in strikes, The security of existing jobs also came under threat from cutbacks in military production and competition from returning veterans.

A few months after Japan surrendered, one of the longest strikes in the nation during 1946 began on January 14 at the Phelps Dodge copper wire plant in Elizabeth. The strike was called by Local 41 of the Electrical, Radio and Machinist Workers Union over wages and working conditions, and the walkout saw the company bring in strikebreakers by boat from Brooklyn, with violence leading to the fatal shooting of one striker on a picket line, and several others injured. In a related tragedy, while folksinger Woody Guthrie sang to an Elizabeth rally at the end of the strike, a fire in his Brooklyn apartment killed his four-year-old daughter


On January 14, 1946 Local 41 of the Electrical, Radio and machinist Workers Union (UE) went on strike over wages and working conditions against the Phelps Dodge Co. copper plant in Elizabeth. The strike closed the plant for 270 days, one of the largest work stoppages of the year, larger even than other substantive coal and steel strikes which usually lasted no more than three months.. The length of the strike, as a function of the ethnic solidarity of the work forces in the city’s neighborhood.

Phelps Dodge first purchased its South Front St property in Elizabeth in 1932 and was a major producer of nonferrous (esp copper) metal goods. It soon expanded its holdings to the entire Bayway Terminal, once used for storing cotton from India and China. Plant officers or employees – over a third were Polish, largely skilled or semiskilled - played little role in civic affairs but invested substantively in industrial sport leagues. Phelps Dodge president resisted negotiation and hired armed Brooklynites, which the union accused of being gangsters led by Mafia figure Anthony Anastasia. One violent confrontation resulted in the gunshot death of worker Mario Russo. The eventual settlement favored the labor union.

Cf. Robert Bruno, "The 1946 Union of Electrical, Radio and machinist Workers’ Strike Against Phelps Dodge Copper Company of Elizabeth New Jersey," Labor History

1948-49 Workers’ strike (5 months) of Elizabeth’s Singer plant, one of the most notable strikes in NJ history, receives support of celebrated folklore singer, Woody Guthrie First built in 1873, the plant at its peak was Elizabeth's largest employer with some 10,000 workers, but had begun a long process of relocating operations to lower-cost sites outside New Jersey, a decline which led to final closing of the plant in 1982.

---

Post-war suburban growth

Following the end of World War II, New Jersey's economy  struggled to adjust to the end of wartime production, the return of veterans to the workforce and the beginning of the decline in its traditional manufacturing base as existing and new firms sought lower-cost sites in other states or abroad. To some extent, the impact was eased by a surge in suburban growth, with demand for housing of the "baby boom" families whose formation had been deferred during the war years. Related construction for retail, office and industrial development also spiked, aided by improved access to communities over the interstate highway system largely financed by the Eisenhower Administration.

​Suburban housing also attracted projects on a much larger scale than the pattern of building throughout the state's history. In 1958, William Levitt, who had previously built projects on Long Island and Pennsylvania, built his third Levittown, an 11,000-house project in Willingboro, a self-contained community which would become a model for later developers.

​The development was divided into four sections (called Quads I-IV), two on each side of the highway. By the time it was finished in 1975, Twin Rivers consisted of 2,700 housing units, 1,700 of them townhouses.

-1950s

In 1953, President Eisenhower appointed James P Mitchell, a native of  Elizabeth, as Secretary of Labor in his Cabinet. Mitchell had begun his career working for Western Electric in Kearny on labor matters, and during the 1930s held state and federal government positions, including for Franklin Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration. At the beginning of World War II, he went to Washington as head of the labor relations division of the Army Construction Program where he subsequently became director of industrial personnel for the War Department in charge of one million men. He returned to New Jersey after the war to take labor relations positions in the private sector, first at R. H. Macy and Co. and then Bloomingdales. After President Eisenhower's election in 1952, Mitchell went back to Washington as Assistant Secretary of the Army in charge of manpower and was sering in that post when he was nominated by President Eisenhower to replace Secretary Martin P. Durkin, a Democrat and union activist who had resigned in protest in September 1953--after less than eight months in office--after he failed to get the White House to support pro-labor changes to the Taft-Hartley Act.. This led to his resignation after less than eight months in office,

Mitchell was a potential running mate for the 1960 Republican presidential candidate, Vice President Richard M. Nixon. However, Nixon chose Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. After an unsuccessful run for Governor of New Jersey in 1961, he retired from politics.In 1953 Mitchell was appointed Assistant Secretary of the Army in charge of manpower and reserve forces affairs. Several months later he was nominated by President Eisenhower to replace Secretary Martin P. Durkin, who had resigned in protest in September 1953.[1]
On October 9, 1953, Mitchell became the Eighth Secretary of Labor and served in that capacity for the remainder of the Eisenhower Administration. He was an advocate of labor--he fought against employment discrimination, opposed right-to-work laws, and was concerned about the plight of migrant workers

The Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor was created in 1953 because of the pervasive corruption on the waterfront in the Port of New York-New Jersey. This corruption was documented in the early 1950's during public hearings held by the New York State Crime Commission with the assistance of the New Jersey Law Enforcement Council.   As a result, in August 1953, the States of New York and New Jersey, with the approval of the Congress and the President of the United States, enacted a compact creating the Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor.
WHY THE COMMISSION WAS CREATED IN 1953
In the early 1950's, an aging freighter, its belly loaded with crates, cartons, barrels and drums, is docked alongside one of the many ancient finger piers jutting into the waters of the Port of New York-New Jersey. At the sound of a whistle blown by a hiring foreman, a semi-circle of apprehensive longshoremen gathers in the hope that they will be selected to unload the vessel.
The foreman, often an ex-felon with a long criminal record, chooses laborers who are willing to "kickback" a portion of their wages for the opportunity to unload the ship, piece by piece. Each hapless dock worker must subject himself to this notorious daily "shape-up" to attain even the possibility of employment. The union, dominated by racketeers and criminals, does little to ease the burden of the rank-and-file worker.
Elsewhere on the pier lurk the loansharks, all too willing to "assist" the underpaid longshoreman in feeding his family or in supporting his vices. The inability to repay these usurious loans results in violent consequences for the longshoreman-borrower. Bookmaking on the pier increases business for the loansharks.
Cargo theft and pilferage are rampant. Pier guards are unwilling or unable to contain thievery.
At the foot of the pier, a parasitic "public loader" coerces truckers to employ him to unload and load trucks, even though the "services" of these loaders are not needed or wanted.

Merger of New Jersey's AFL and CIO
The New Jersey merger took place five years after the national AFL and CIO federations came together — a decision made after a Republican Congress overrode Democratic President Harry Truman’s veto and passed the Taft-Hartley Act, which sharply restricted the rights of workers to strike, boycott and picket, and allowed the creation of “right to work” states. With Murphy nodding his approval, Jacobson would tell members attending the 1961 convention it was his sincere hope that “New Jersey’s united labor movement will make possible the greatest degree of progress for the cause of the workers of this industrial state.” On September 26, 1961, George Meany, president of the AFL-CIO, symbolically “tied the knot” linking the hands of AFL leader Vincent Murphy and CIO chief Joel Jacobson.
http://www.aflcio.org/Blog/In-The-States/New-Jersey-State-AFL-CIO-50-Years-of-Making-a-Difference
*  New Jersey State AFL-CIO: 50 Years of Making a Difference, Charles Wowkanech and Laurel Brennan, 9/26/2011, AFL-CIO Today
​*  The Importance of Unions, NJ AFL-CIO TODAY

9) 1970 U.S. Postal Strike
> No. of strikers: 210,000
> Period: March, 1970
> Affected area: began in New York City, spread nationwide
During the Nixon administration, U.S. postal workers were not allowed to engage in collective bargaining. Increased dissatisfaction with wages, working conditions, benefits and management led the postal workers in New York City to strike. Encouraged by New Yorks example, postal workers nationwide followed suit. With mail and parcel delivery at a standstill, Nixon ordered the National Guard to replace the striking workers  a measure that proved ineffective. The strike was so effective that within two weeks negotiations took place. The unions demands for higher wages and improved conditions were largely met, and they were granted the right to negotiate.
10) UPS workers strike
> No. of strikers: 185,000
> Period: August 1997
> Affected area: nationwide
The largest strike of the 1990s was lead by 185,000 UPS Teamsters. They were looking for the creation of full-time jobs rather than part-time, increased wages and the retention of their multiemployer pension plan. These workers gained major support from the public and eventually had all of their demands met. UPS, however, lost more than $600 million in business as a result of the ordeal.

- Teamsters and organized crime
The 8,000-member Local 560 has been under trusteeship since June 1986, when the U.S. Supreme Court agreed with U.S. District Judge Harold A. Ackerman that such action was necessary to free the union from mob control.


In appointing a trustee, Ackerman said Local 560 was ''an orgy of criminal activity'' and that members were intimidated to ensure silence. Federal prosecutors had sued under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, charging Local 560 was controlled by organized crime figure Anthony ''Tony Pro'' Provenzano.


Provenzano is serving a 20-year prison term for a racketeering conviction. He has been linked to the unsolved disappearance of national Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa in 1975.

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