Organizing the Shipyards
Organizing the Shipyards

Author: David Palmer

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 9780801427343

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In Organizing the Shipyards, David Palmer documents the history of union organizing at three of America's largest private shipyards from the Great Depression and the beginning of the New Deal to the end of World War II. These yards had tremendous strategic importance because of their location in the Northeast's three port regions: New York Shipbuilding in the port of Philadelphia, Bethlehem Fore River Shipyard in the port of Boston, and Federal Shipbuilding in the port of New York. The Industrial Union of Marine and Shipbuilding Workers of America, which led each of the drives, pioneered industrial unionism and became one of the largest of the new CIO unions, with a quarter of a million members in an industry that employed more wartime workers than any other. Using oral history interviews with former union officials, organizing staff, and rank-and-file workers, Palmer presents both a narrative and a scholarly account. He covers the successes and the failures of union organizing in the yards themselves, in neighboring communities, and sometimes in outreach to political leaders as elevated as Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins and President Franklin D. Roosevelt. In the process, Palmer offers a reassessment of the basis for the early gains of the CIO and also for its subsequent bureaucratization.

Heavy Metal
Heavy Metal

Author: Michael Fabey

Publisher: HarperCollins

Published: 2022-06-14

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 0062996274

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An extraordinary story of American can-do, an inside look at the building of the most dangerous aircraft carrier in the world, the John F. Kennedy. Tip the Empire State Building onto its side and you’ll have a sense of the length of the United States Navy’s newest aircraft carrier, the most powerful in the world: the USS John F. Kennedy. Weighing 100,000 tons, Kennedy features the most futuristic technology ever put to sea, making it the most agile and lethal global weapon of war. Only one place possesses the brawn, brains and brass to transform naval warfare with such a creation – the Newport News Shipbuilding yard in Virginia and its 30,000 employees and shipyard workers. This is their story, the riggers, fitters, welders, electricians, machinists and other steelworkers who built the next-generation aircraft carrier. Heavy Metal puts us on the waterfront and into the lives of these men and women as they battle layoffs, the elements, impossible deadlines, extraordinary pressure, workplace dangers and a pandemic to complete a ship that will be essential to protect America’s way of life. The city of Newport News owes its very existence to the company that bears its name. The shipyard dominates the town—physically, politically, financially, socially, and culturally. Thanks to the yard, the city grew from a backwater to be the home of the premier naval contractor in the United States. Heavy Metal captures an indelible moment in the history of a shipyard, a city, and a country.

The Labor Market of the United States Shipbuilding Industry
The Labor Market of the United States Shipbuilding Industry

Author: John Charles Martin

Publisher:

Published: 1978

Total Pages: 188

ISBN-13:

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This study presents a detailed analysis of the labor market of the United States shipbuilding industry. Primary emphasis is given to the wage rates and earnings in shipbuilding and their apparent impact on industry turnover and mobility. It appears that the noncompetitive wages and earnings of older, more experienced workers in shipbuilding results in a loss of these workers to the construction and durable manufacturing industries. To correct this loss, the findings suggest that the wages of older, more experienced shipbuilding workers be increased to levels competitive with those is other industries. In part, the resulting higher wage costs can be offset by dampening pay increases of young workers and through reduced training costs and improved productivity. (Author).

Shipyard Worker Employment and Turnover. Volume I. Description of Data File and Tabulations
Shipyard Worker Employment and Turnover. Volume I. Description of Data File and Tabulations

Author: Louis Jacobson

Publisher:

Published: 1976

Total Pages: 56

ISBN-13:

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Workers employed in shipbuilding often leave the industry for work in other industries or in other places. Shipyards that provide training for leavers may thus simply be bearing the training costs for other industries. At the same time, replacing the workers lost to other industries may be very expensive. This report presents tabulations of data about labor turnover in shipbuilding. They measure the number of workers who leave the industry, by age and tenure; the industries and metropolitan areas to which they go from specific shipbuilding centers; and labor turnover by year from 1957 to 1971. This volume describes the tabulations and explains how to read them.