| The relationship between the New Left and labor in the United States from the late 1950s to the early 1970s has been misunderstood. Historians and social commentators have argued that the New Left saw the working class as irrelevant and/or had an antagonistic relationship with labor. Studies of the 1960s highlight the notorious incident of May 1970 in which construction workers beat up antiwar demonstrators, as indicative of the period. This view inadequately portrays the complex and changing relationship between the New Left and labor. A closer examination of the 1960s reveals that new leftists cooperated with labor and confronted them.; Drawing on New Left and labor periodicals, manuscript collections, memoirs and reports by journalists and social scientists, this dissertation argues that in the early 1960s new leftists and a significant segment of the labor movement cooperated in the fight for civil rights and against poverty, while differing over foreign policy and the pace of change. From 1965 through 1969, the New Left and labor split to opposite ends of the political spectrum, dividing over the Vietnam War, black power and the counterculture. New Leftists castigated labor as one of the pillars of an unjust society. Labor leaders portrayed new leftists as extremists who threatened liberal society. However, even during the mid-1960s, a period of antagonism, a minority of trade unionists and leftists retained ties with one another via campaigns to organize the unorganized, most notably migrant farm workers and by establishing a variety of trade unionist for peace associations. In the early 1970s segments of the New Left and labor remained polarized, with some workers venting their anger with antiwar activists in the streets, while other segments of both movements forged alliances, particularly in certain locales, around the goals of peace, progressive politics and economic and human dignity. |
