FDR, New Deals, and the Limits of Power 209particular, a congressional committee headed by Texas Representative Martin
Dies—the House Un-American Activities Committee [HUAC] went after the CIO
and labor “militants.” But the AFL’s opposition was the NLRB’s and CIO’s
bigger problem. Without a united labor movement, sustaining the Wagner Act
and getting fair treatment for workers would be all the more difficult. The
AFL, however, was more interested in maintaining its position as the most
important labor organization in America rather than work with other unions
to help workers and its president, William Green, incredibly said “we will
mobilize our political and economic strength in an uncompromising fight
until... [the NLRB] is driven from power... The Board is a travesty on
justice.”
As a result, in the 1938 Democratic primaries, AFL-backed [and thus
corporate-backed] candidates trounced New Deal and CIO-endorsed candi-
dates, and in that November’s general election the Republicans gained 81
seats in the House of Representatives and 8 Senators. The new Congress,
aided by corporations and the AFL, went after the Wagner Act and NLRB
with great energy, but the Supreme Court did uphold it, as noted. For work-
ers, the right to organize a union and have it bargain collectively was sus-
tained, and union membership grew. Still, the hopes of so many labor leaders
and NLRB activists of creating a new relationship between employers and
workers was not realized. Labor law did become a permanent feature of the
economy, but those brief moments of triumph in 1935-1936 faded, as the
corporate leaders, aided by the AFL, regained their dominant power over the
working class. FDR and New Deal Liberals, who spoke so passionately about
their concern for labor and the poor, in the end were more concerned with
maintaining traditional Capitalist relationships with corporations holding
power over working people. The crisis of the depression and rise of radical
unionism forced their hands to make changes, but it was always reform clear-
ly within the established system of Capitalism. And even then, it was the
effort of working men and women, time and again in the 1930s, taking to the
picket lines that made what reform did occur a reality.
In the Streets
The Wagner Act surely helped workers unionize and gain more workplace
rights than ever before but, as seen above, FDR, the Congress, the conserva-