STERILE COMBAT: LABOR, POLITICS, AND RIGHT TO WORK (UNIONS, SOUTH, LEGISLATION)

Despite unprecedented political activity since the advent of the New Deal, organized labor has produced few legislative gains regarding labor policy since the late 1930s. Beginning in those years, the labor movement abandoned its previous non-partisan political philosophy and grew increasingly intimate with the Democratic Party. Theoretically, labor's partisanship should have produced at least some beneficial legislative reform during this era of general Democratic dominance. Nevertheless, through the mid-1960s, the political forces impacting on national labor policy remained largely indifferent, if not outright hostile, to the viewpoints of labor leaders.;Such a study of labor's political efforts to deal with the right-to-work challenge in these decades indicates that labor politics since the New Deal contained much continuity with the previous era of Voluntarism, and that the innovation of partisanship was in many ways a realistic adjustment to political reality. Labor leaders sought protection from the legislative attacks of their economic enemies by moving closer to liberal Democrats. They also hoped their activity would eventually allow them to modify state and national labor policy. In the final analysis, however, organized labor's political strength was too weak to keep the fractious Democratic Party committed to the labor movement and unionists consequently sought to build a liberal coalition to get around this problem. That decision ultimately produced beneficial social welfare and civil rights legislation, but failed to resolve the union security situation to labor's leaders satisfaction, even at the height of the Democrats' power in 1965-1966. Partisanship thus proved to be of limited utility in wielding special interest influence on broad policy questions reflecting fundamental power relationships.;An examination of one controversial aspect of labor policy--the right-to-work issue--reveals in detail the dynamics of labor politics in the post-New Deal years. By focusing on labor's institutional response to the problem of growing legislative restrictions on union security from 1942 to 1967, labor's influence on the political structure is outlined in sharp relief. Therefore, a clearer assessment can be made about benefits and limitations brought about by organized labor's acceptance of the Democratic alliance.