The politics of productivity and the politics of anti-communism: American and European labour in the Cold War
Author: Anthony Carew1
Source: Intelligence and National Security, Volume 18, Number 2, June 2003 , pp. 73-91(19)
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Abstract:
The 'politics of productivity', an attempt to raise levels of industrial productivity in Europe by transcending class conflict and creating a consensus in society for economic growth, was a prominent element in Marshall Plan thinking. It constituted a central focus of the European Recovery Program's labour programme administered by American trade union officials who staffed the Marshall Plan's Labor Division. This programme was initially supported by the American Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), until hostility to collective bargaining in the local business community, combined with the unwillingness of senior Marshall Plan administrators to insist on collective bargaining as the price of receiving American assistance, blighted the project. This contribution contrasts the CIO's initial support for the productivity programme with the American Federation of Labour's (AFL) more direct strategy of combating communism at the level of organization and propaganda. It concludes by describing how the competing claims of these two American labour organizations for US government funding became a significant factor in American labour's conduct of Cold War politics.Document Type: Research article
DOI: 10.1080/02684520412331306750
Affiliations: 1: International Labour Studies at the School of Management, University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology
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