Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Labor unions Australia History 20th century'

From 1906 to 1912 the British police contended with the struggles of militant suffragettes and active unionists. In facing the disturbances associated with the suffragette movement and union mobilization, the police confronted the dual problems of maintaining the public order essential to the survival and welfare of the kingdom while at the same time assuring to individuals the liberty necessary for Britain's further progress. This dissertation studies those police activities in detail.

The Accord was a political exchange whereby the labour leadership participated in the wage restraint programme in return for consultative rights and specific quid pro quo policies, including countercyclical measures to offset fiscal austerity. The President subsequently sustained a policy of fiscal and monetary restraint despite the approaching election and the increasing protests of organized labour. However, in the face of strong opposition from some of Carter's senior economists, the labour leaders secured significant modifications to the second year of the pay standard. The 1980 presidential election renewed incentives for continuing cooperation when economic policy otherwise jeopardized relations.

The labor movement's groundswell in the 1990s accompanied a period of intense competition and conglomeration within the retail book sector. Unexpectedly, the intersection of these two trends produced two dozen union drives across the country between 1996 and 2004 at large retail bookstores, including Borders and Barnes & Noble. Historians have yet to fully examine these retail organizing contests or recount their contributions to the labor movement and its history, including booksellers' pioneering use of the internet as an organizing tool. This thesis focuses on the aspirations, tactics, and contributions of booksellers in their struggles to unionize their workplaces, while also exploring the economic context surrounding bookselling and the labor movement at the end of the twentieth century. While the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) auspiciously announced a national campaign in 1997 to organize thousands of bookstore clerks, the only successfully unionized bookstore from this era that remains today is the Powell's Books chain in Portland, Oregon with over 400 workers represented by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 5. Local 5's successful union campaign at Powell's Books occurring between 1998 and 2000 is at the center of this study and stands out as a point of light against a dark backdrop of failed union attempts in the retail sector during the latter decades of the twentieth century. This inquiry utilizes Local 5's internal document archive and the collection of oral histories gathered by labor historians Edward Beechert and Harvey Schwartz in 2001 and 2002. My analysis of these previously unexamined records demonstrates how Powell's efforts to thwart the ILWU campaign proved a decisive failure and contributed to the polarization of a super majority of the workforce behind Local 5. Equally, my analysis illustrates how the self-organization, initiative, and unrelenting creativity of booksellers transformed a narrow union election victory to overwhelming support for the union's bargaining committee. Paramount to Local 5's contract success was the union's partnership with Portland's social justice community, which induced a social movement around Powell's Books at a time of increased political activity and unity among the nation's labor, environment, and anti-globalization activists. The bonds of solidarity and mutual aid between Local 5 and its community allies were forged during the World Trade Organization (WTO) demonstrations in Seattle in 1999 and Portland's revival of May Day in 2000. Following eleven work stoppages and fifty-three bargaining sessions, the union acquired a first contract that far exceeded any gains made by the UFCW at its unionized bookstores. The Powell's agreement included improvements to existing health and retirement benefits plus an 18 percent wage increase for employees over three years. This analysis brings to light the formation of a distinct working-class culture and consciousness among Powell's booksellers, communicated through workers' essays, artwork, strikes, and solidarity actions with the social justice community. It provides a detailed account of Local 5's creative street theater tactics and work stoppages that captured the imagination of activists and the attention of the broader community. The conflict forced the news media and community leaders to publicly choose sides in a labor dispute reminiscent of struggles not seen in Portland since the 1950s. Observers of all political walks worried that the Portland cultural and commercial intuition would collapse under the weight of the two-year labor contest. My research illustrates the tension among the city's liberal and progressive populace created by the upstart union's presence at prominent liberal civic leader Michael Powell's iconic store and how the union organized prominent liberal leaders on the side of their cause. It concludes by recognizing that Local 5's complete history remains a work in progress, but that its formation represents an indispensable Portland contribution to the revitalized national labor movement of the late 1990s.

The conclusion of the First World War brought the resumption of a struggle of a different sort: a battle between government and labor. Throughout 1919, government and labor squared off in a struggle over hours, wages, and nationalization. The Russian Revolution introduced the danger of the bolshevik contagion into the struggle. The first to enter into this conflict with the government were the shop stewards of Belfast and Glasgow. The struggle continued with the continued threats of the Triple Alliance and the police to destroy the power of the government through industrial action. This thesis examines the British labor movement during this revolutionary year in Europe, as well as the government's response to this new danger.

This thesis concentrates on a local union of the International Association of Machinists (IAM), District Lodge 776, of Fort Worth, Texas, during the war years. The main argument of the thesis runs along three basic lines. First, it demonstrates that the experiences of the Fort Worth Machinists clearly fit into the national labor movement during the war years. Second, it argues that the existence, survival, and strength of the union depended greatly on outside forcesan expanding national economy, a powerful national union, and a generally labor-friendly government. Third, it shows that union officers and rank-and-file members used their bases of strengththe national economy, the national IAM, and the federal governmentto build an effective local labor organization.

During the period of the late 1920s through the late 1940s, a most remarkable event in the history of American social work emerged: the development of a vital radical trade union organizing effort known as the ''rank and file movement." Born within the growing economic crisis of the 1920s and maturing in the national economic collapse and social upheaval heralded by the Great Depression, the rank and file movement would attract the support and membership of thousands of professional social workers and uncredentialed relief workers in efforts to organize social service workers along the lines of industrial unionism. Within its relatively short life span, the rank and file movement would grow in sufficient number and influence to challenge both the prevailing definitions of social work as a profession - its form and identity and the essence of its function - its practice. It is the thesis of this study that an understanding of the rank and file movement is central to a modem understanding of our profession. The origin, development and demise of the rank and file movement reflects more than the historical curiosity of a momentary tendency in the evolution of a profession; rather, it reveals the enduring legacy of individuals, organizations and collective intellectual discourse in common struggle for the possibilities of a more just and democratic social order. And, perhaps unlike any other profession, the domain of social work is historically one uniquely born of this struggle, encompassing the self-imposed imperatives and paradoxes of morality, socially purposive service and scientific rationality. Consequently, this study seeks to inform the terms of this enduring legacy within the dynamic world of social work. It does so by: 1) locating the history of the rank and file movement within the context of an evolving profession; 2) analyzing this specific history of a profession within the context of broader social and political forces that defined both the limits and potentials of that evolution; and 3) assessing the implications of this history for social work in terms of its past, present and future.

Thesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2001.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: During the course of the 20th century the press played an absolutely crucial role as a source of information, a medium of communication and propaganda, educator, critic, public watchdog and in forming and influencing opinion. In this respect the press may also be regarded as a reflection of South African society. This study investigates the role that the press played and the influence that it exercised in the political and economic mobilisation of the organised labour movement during the period 1908 to 1924. In view of the racial divisions that have prevailed in South Africa, the focus here is specifically on the white labour movement, because it was this manifestation of the organised labour force that virtually dominated the first few decades of the twentieth century. During this time the black labour movement was still to a large extent under-developed and began to emerge only around the 1920s. Organised labour flourished during the period under review. This period is characterised as one of political turbulence, as well as of large scale and serious industrial unrest, as part of the cathartic process in which the relationship between the state and its subjects in the field of labour took shape. The study adopts as its point of departure the year 1908, when the National Convention began its deliberations on the unification of South Africa, which in turn led to the official founding of the South African Labour Party in October 1909. The Labour Party operated independently until 1924, when the alliance between the National Party and the Labour Party won the election held in that year and formed the Pact coalition government. From an economic point of view there were two clear positions. On the one hand, there were the so-called establishment press organizations. These included Afrikaans-language newspapers, although - because of their ethnic commitments - they were strongly in favour of the protection of the economic position of the Afrikaner workers. On the other hand, there were anti-capitalist press organisations that wished to promote proactive steps in favour of the workers, which in tum often resulted in industrial conflict in the form of strikes. These tensions in the economic terrain spilled over into the political sphere elections, and here too the press played a central role in the often tense relationship between state and subject. In order to understand a meaningful analysis of the social role of the press, the following press organs and study materials were selected: The Star was the mouthpiece of the powerful Witwatersrand gold-mining industry. Die Burger and Ons Vaderland played a great role in the political and economic mobilisation of the Afrikaner working class whose sympathies lay with the National Party. The following labour-orientated and socialist papers reflected and interpreted the political and economic points of view of the labour movement in the period 1908 - 1924: Voice of Labour, The Worker, The Eastern Record, The Evening Chronicle, The War on War Gazette, The International, The Labour World, The Bolshevik and The Guardian. In addition, the role of a number of extremist strike newspapers In mobilising workers during the strikes of 1913, 1914 and 1922, is also investigated. The press played an important role in exposing a number of cardinal issues that dominated the discourse within the labour movement to greater public criticism and discussion. The effect of this was to raise the struggle between labour and capital for hegemony in the political and economic life of South Africa - as happened every time during election campaigns - to the level of the national political debate. Furthermore, the press, and specifically the right-wing labour and left-wing socialist press organs, also reflected the deep ideological divisions in the labour movement. In this respect, it was particularly the views of these press organs on race and the place of black people in the industrial dispensation that determined and influenced their political creeds. The mobilising power of the press was vividly illustrated by the strike papers. By propounding militant extremism these papers often succeeded in sweeping up industrial unrest among workers to the level of violence, which meant that the authorities were compelled to suppress these publications by means of martial law proclamations. It is probable that the SALP, and especially the socialist organisations, on the periphery of the political spectrum, would not have survived for long in South African politics without the communicative support of their mouthpieces.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Gedurende die 20ste eeu het die pers, as bron van inligting, kommunikasie- en propagandamedium, opvoeder, kritikus, openbare waghond en meningsvormer en -beihvloeder, 'n uiters belangrike samelewingsrol vertolk. In hierdie opsig kan die pers ook as 'n weerspieeling van die Suid-Afrikaanse samelewing beskou word. Hierdie studie ondersoek die rol wat die pers gespeel het en die invloed wat dit as openbare memngsvormer met betrekking tot die politieke en ekonomiese mobilisasie van die georganiseerde arbeiderbeweging gedurende die tydperk 1908 tot 1924 uitgeoefen het. Gegewe die historiese rasseverdeeldheid in Suid-Afrika, is daar spesifiek op die blanke arbeiderbeweging gekonsentreer, aangesien dit die arbeidsterrein gedurende die eerste paar dekades van die twintigste eeu feitlik oorheers het. Die swart arbeiderbeweging was in daardie stadium nog grootliks onderontwikkeld en het eers om en by die twintigerjare begin ontwaak. Die betrokke tydperk was 'n tydperk van hoogbloei VIr die georganiseerde blanke arbeiderbeweging. Dit word veral gekenmerk as 'n tydperk van politieke onstuirnigheid, asook van groot en ernstige endemiese nywerheidsonrus en konflik, as dee 1van 'n katarsis waardeur die verhouding tussen staat en onderdaan op die arbeidsterrein uitgekristalliseer het. Die vertrekpunt van die studie is 1908, toe die sittings van die Nasionale Konvensie met die oog op die unifikasie van Suid-Afrika 'n aanvang geneem het en ook aanleiding gegee het tot die amptelike stigting van die Suid-Afrikaanse Arbeidersparty in Oktober 1909. Dit strek tot 1924, toe die verkiesingsalliansie van die Nasionale Party en die Arbeidersparty die oorwinning by die stembus behaal en die Pakt-koalisieregering gevorm het. Vanuit 'n ekonomiese oogpunt gesien, was daar twee duidelike stellingnamens. Enersyds was daar die sogenaamde establishment-persorgane. Hieronder ressorteer ook Afrikaanstalige koerante, alhoewel hulle as gevolg van 'n etniese verbondenheid sterk ten gunste van die beskerming van die ekonomiese posisie van die Afrikanerwerkers was. Andersyds was daar anti-kapitalistiese persorgane wat 'n pro-aktiewe optrede ten behoewe van die werkers, wat dikwels op nywerheidskonflik in die vorm van stakings uitgeloop het wou bevorder. Hierdie gespannenheid op ekonomiese terrein het oorgespoel na die politieke sfeer van verkiesings en ook daarin het die pers, in die dikwels gespanne verhouding tussen owerheid en onderdaan, 'n sentrale rol gespeel. Ten einde 'n sinvolle ontleding van die samelewingsrol van die pers te kon doen, is die volgende persorgane as studiemateriaal geselekteer: The Star was die mondstuk van die magtige kapitalistiese, Witwatersrandse goudmynindustrie. Die Burger en Ons Vaderland het 'n groot rol in die politieke en ekonomiese mobilisasie van die Nasionaalgesinde Afrikanerwerkersklas vervul. Die volgende arbeider- en sosialistiese blaaie het die politieke en ekonomiese uitgangspunte van die arbeiderbeweging in die tydperk 1908 tot 1924 weerspieel en vertolk: Voice of Labour, The Worker, The Eastern Record, The Evening Chronicle, The War on War Gazette, The International, The Labour World, The Bolshevik en The Guardian. Daarby is ook die mobiliseringsrol wat 'n aantal ekstremistiese stakersblaaie in die stakings van 1913, 1914 en 1922 gespeel het, ondersoek. Die pers het 'n belangrike rol gespeel om 'n aantal kardinale kwessies, wat die diskoers binne die arbeidergeledere oorheers het, ook aan groter openbare kritiek en bespreking bloot te stel. Sodoende is die stryd tussen arbeid en kapitaal om die hegemonie van die Suid-Afrikaanse politieke en ekonomiese lewe byvoorbeeld telkens tydens verkiesingsveldtogte tot die nasionale debat verhef. Daarbenewens het die pers, spesifiek by monde van die regse arbeider- en linkse sosialistiese persorgane, ook die diepe ideologiese verdeeldheid in arbeidergeledere weerspieel. In hierdie opsig was dit veral hulle rassebeskouings en die posisie van die swart man in die nywerheidsbestel wat die politieke credo van hierdie persorgane bepaal en befuvloed het. Die mobiliseringsmag van die pers is treffend dem stakerblaaie gemustreer. Dem militante ekstremisme te verkondig, kon sodanige blaaie dikwels daarin slaag om nywerheidsonrus onder werkers tot die vlak van geweld op te sweep sodat die owerheid dan genoop was om hierdie publikasies dem middel van Krygswetproklamasies te onderdruk. Synde op die periferie van die politieke spektrum, sou die SAAP, en veral die sosia1istiese organisasies, sonder kommunikatiewe ondersteuning van hulle spreekbuise waarskynlik slegs 'n kortstondige politieke bestaan in die Suid-Afrikaanse politiek gevoer het.

Cette recherche a pour ambition de contribuer aux études sur l’histoire sociale de la construction européenne. En prenant pour point d’appui le cas de l’industrie charbonnière, il a été possible de mettre en évidence une tentative de préservation et de prolongement des politiques sociales d’après-guerre à l’intérieur de la Communauté. Les débats sur le logement ouvrier, les discussions paritaires et la tentative d’instauration d’un statut européen du mineur reflètent cette continuité entre les niveaux nationaux et européens. L’échec de politiques sociales d’envergure sonnait le glas d’un élan initié par quelques syndicalistes et militants européens pour un approfondissement de l’Europe sociale dont l’expression commençait à prendre consistance. La crise charbonnière de 1958 allait transformer les politiques de la Haute Autorité où la réponse aux crises régionales prenait une place majeure. En ce sens, la reconversion du Borinage était le premier test social d’envergure pour le maintien du consensus politique d’après-guerre. Malgré les mesures nationales et européennes pour la relance économique du bassin borain, aucune industrie n’est parvenue à remplacer les fosses tant du point de vue économique qu’identitaire. Les conflits sociaux apparus dans les années 1970 ont alors mis en lumière les transformations sociales et culturelles du Borinage en reconversion.
Doctorat en Histoire, art et archéologie
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En Belgique, 85% des chômeurs sont affiliés à une organisation syndicale. Cette situation inhabituelle est principalement due à la fonction d’organisme de paiement des allocations de chômage que remplissent les trois syndicats interprofessionnels. L’objet de la thèse est d’examiner les origines de la relation particulière qui découle de cet état de fait et de questionner ses implications tout à la fois pour les syndicats et pour les chômeurs.

Les développements théoriques se penchent sur le mode de fonctionnement et sur les déterminants de l’action des organisations syndicales, sur les causes du chômage et ses conséquences pour les travailleurs salariés et leurs organisations, ainsi que sur les obstacles et les incitants à l’action collective contestataire des sans-emploi.

Ces outils d’analyse sont ensuite utilisés pour examiner, depuis l’origine des organisations syndicales contemporaines et de l’indemnisation du chômage, au XIXe siècle, jusqu’à la réforme du mode de contrôle des chômeurs en 2004, les fondements et l’évolution de la relation que les syndicats belges entretiennent avec les questions de l’emploi et du chômage d’une part, avec les chômeurs d’autre part.

In Belgium, 85% of the unemployed are unionised. This peculiar situation is mainly related to the specific position of the trade unions, as the jobless can choose to receive their benefits through the intervention of one of the three national unions. The Ph.D. dissertation aims at examining the origins of that specific relationship and its implications on both the trade unions and the unemployed.

The theoretical part explores the features of union action and functioning, the causes of unemployment and its consequences for the workers and their organisations, as well as the impediments and impetus to the contentious mobilisation of the unemployed.

Based on that theoretical framework, the Ph.D. dissertation then examines the origins and the evolution from the 19th century till 2004 of the union positions on the issues of employment and unemployment on the one hand, and their links with the jobless on the other.

Doctorat en sciences politiques
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En dépit de son importance dans la formation de la société contemporaine, le syndicalisme apparaît comme l’un des parents pauvres de l’historiographie en Belgique. Il y a plus de trente ans, Jean Puissant déplorait que l’historiographie syndicale était essentiellement « produite par le milieu syndical lui-même » et que sa fonction était généralement « la commémoration, la légitimation, la contestation ou encore la célébration » (Archivium, vol.XXVII, 1980). Plusieurs auteurs ont, à partir des années 1960 et surtout des années 1980, entamé une approche scientifique de l’histoire syndicale. Mais, en raison du manque cruel d’études systématiques préalables, cette production historique récente, plus riche de perspectives scientifiques, est demeurée largement monographique, ne dépassant que partiellement les clivages sectoriels, régionaux et politiques. « Des synthèses restent à faire, écrivait Antoine Prost en 1997 à propos de la France, [car] aucun de ces travaux ne réussit à lier de façon pleinement satisfaisante l’histoire du travail, celle des travailleurs et celle du mouvement ouvrier. [.] Les nouveaux paradigmes de l’histoire ouvrière continuent à se chercher » (Cahiers d’Histoire, n°66, 1997). Ce constat s’applique incontestablement à l’historiographie syndicale belge.

L’ambition de la présente thèse est de pallier l’absence d’étude d’ensemble sur le mouvement syndical belge de l’entre-deux-guerres, période essentielle dans le processus de mise en place du syndicalisme contemporain en Belgique. Cette période est en effet non seulement marquée par l’avènement d’un syndicalisme de masse, par l’intégration des syndicats dans des nouveaux systèmes de relations industrielles (reconnaissance généralisée des syndicats par le patronat et l’État comme interlocuteurs privilégiés dans la négociation du contrat de travail), par leur attribution à l’échelle nationale d’un rôle officiel dans la redistribution des secours étatiques de chômage, mais également par de profondes réformes des structures et des fonctionnements syndicaux (centralisation, concentration et rationalisation accrues).

Notre étude tente d’analyser comment et suivant quelles modalités les diverses composantes du mouvement syndical ont participé à ces transformations sociétales (y compris en ce qui concerne le nouveau rôle qu’elles y acquièrent) en même temps qu’elles se sont trouvées transformées par elles. Globalement, elle propose une évaluation des influences réciproques sur la construction du fait syndical belge :

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Doctorat en Histoire, art et archéologie
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The texts of the Waterside Workers' Federation offer a valuable insight into the beliefs and activities of one of Australia's more powerful and militant unions. This investigation focuses on the period following the end of the 1930s and the years of World War 2 when the WWF was going through a rebuilding phase under a strong Communist leadership. Seen as an essential tool for the organizational rebuilding of a battered and fragmented Federation, the leaders of the union saw the establishment of a journal as a priority. The product of this vision was the widely distributed, monthly Maritime Worker. This newspaper became the masthead of a politically re-awakening union and through it historians have been able to access the ideological directions the WWF took to achieve its industrial and political objectives. This investigation places the texts of the Waterside Workers' Federation under the scrutiny of a post-structuralist analysis that has the work of Michel Foucault as one of its principal features. The object of this project is to develop a critique of the organising processes that inform historical knowledge. These processes are recognised as the constraints that discourse functions place on all meaning and understanding. By focussing on the texts of the Waterside Workers' Federation and interrogating the interpretative features that support the notions of text, ideology and discourse, this investigation introduces the need for a re-examination of the constitutive and organisational features that have constrained and limited historical knowledge in the modem period.

This thesis is an examination of the main tendencies in the trade union movement in South Africa during the currency of the Industrial Cenci 1 iation Act from 1924 to 1979, and of state labour policy of direct relevance to worker organisation. It considers in particular the reasons for the predominance of protectionist strategies, frequently amounting to racial monopolies and exclusion, among the unions catering for white artisan and production workers. Attention is given to the deployment of legislative and other policy instruments by the South African state intent on providing support for the prevailing protectionist demands and the exclusionary stance of large sections of the trade union movement. In analysing these developments, reference is made to the history of the trade union federations reflecting the divergent interests of different sections of the South African labour movement during this period. The evolution of trade unions for the workers occupying a subordinate role in the South African "racial order" is also traced. Consideration is given to the barriers to the full development of such trade unions, and to the incipient decline of the era of racial exclusion which the 1970s witnessed.
Sociology
D. Litt. et Phil. (Sociology)

This thesis examines work and unions in the Victorian building industry between 1856 and 1890. It presents reasons to rethink the character of the nineteenth century Australian labour movement on the basis of the experiences, ideas and institutions of these building workers, whose craft unions have been contrasted to the new unions of semi- and unskilled occupations that formed in the 1880s. From detailed evidence on each building trades' work, common dimensions of working experience, and changes in work between 1860 and 1890, the first part of the thesis argues that skilled building workers were not labour aristocrats. There was diversity in their working experiences which led to conflict and cooperation with both their employers and fellow workers. Conflicts emerged, particularly during the building boom of the 1880s, when a massive expansion of the industry affected craft labour markets and some social values. The second part of the thesis recounts the history of the building unions from their attainment of an eight hour working day in 1856 to a crisis of "sweating" in the building industry in 1890. While the unions had early successes, there were many difficulties faced by these institutions in subsequent years. My research suggests a large number of revisions and enrichments of common understandings of nineteenth century unions. In particular, the thesis argues for an understanding of the social world of the unionists, which included a complex intellectual and social relationship to liberalism, rivalries and friendships between officials, and sustaining moral values embodied in the conduct of unions. Despite growing organisational strength, the building unions had neither strong collective agreements with employers nor control of craft labour markets. The contrasting examples of key individuals, William Murphy and Ben Douglass, are discussed to show tradition and change at work in the building unions. While Murphy embraced change, including that commonly attributed to the new unions of the 1880s, Douglass resisted organisational and ideological developments by retreating to the eight hour day tradition. This tradition was the building unions' major cultural contribution to the Victorian labour movement. Finally, the thesis concludes by suggesting that a more complex interpretation of nineteenth century labour history invites a re-examination of the relationships between colonial and modem labour movements. While 1890 was in many ways a turning point in labour history, there were important connections between "new" and "old" unionists, and between nineteenth century working class liberalism and twentieth century labour's social ideas.

This project analyzes the sexual and gender politics of flight attendants, especially the men who did this work, since the 1930s. It traces how and why the flight attendant corps became the nearly exclusive domain of white women by the 1950s, then considers the various legal battles under the 1964 Civil Rights Act to re-integrate men into the workforce, open up greater opportunities for African-Americans, and liberate women from onerous age and marriage restrictions that cut short their careers. While other scholars have emphasized flight attendants' contributions in battling sexism in the courts, this project is unique in expanding such consideration to homosexuality. Male flight attendants' status as gender pariahs in the workforce (as men performing "women's work")--combined with the fact that many of them were gay--made them objects of "homosexual panic" in the 1950s, both in legal proceedings and in various forms of extra-legal intimidation. A decade later, aspirant flight attendants were participants in some of the first cases brought by men under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. Their victories in the courts greatly benefited the gay community, among others, which thereby enjoyed greater freedom to enter a highly visible, public-relationsoriented corporate career. As such, my project helps to recast the legal legacy of the civil rights movement as a three-pronged reform, confronting homophobia as well as racism and sexism. Beyond legal considerations, Manhood Up in the Air also examines how both labor unions and the airlines negotiated a legal environment and public sentiment that largely condoned firing homosexuals, while nonetheless accommodating gay employees. This form of accommodation existed in the 1950s, though much more precariously than in the post-Stonewall decade of the 1970s. Thus, the project records the pre-history to the current reality, in which both corporations (with airlines at the forefront) and labor unions have become core supporters of the contemporary gay rights movement.
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