Where He Stands: Albert Shanker of the American Federation of Teachers

1996 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 533
Author(s):  
Wayne J. Urban ◽  
Dickson A. Mungazi
Keyword(s):  
American Federation ◽  
American Federation Of Teachers

The Threshold

Bad Faith ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 21-35
Author(s):  
Andrew Feffer
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
State Legislature ◽  
The State ◽  
Constitutional Rights ◽  
American Democracy ◽  
American Federation ◽  
American Federation Of Teachers ◽  
Public Hearings ◽  
Political Associations ◽  
Witch Hunt

This chapter covers the first public hearings of the Rapp-Coudert investigation, held in December 1940 and directed by liberal Paul Windels, protégé of reformer and Fusion activist Judge Samuel Seabury. Though challenged by the teachers unions (Locals 5 and 537 of the American Federation of Teachers) and civil libertarians, Windels unfolded a sophisticated witch-hunt based on the investigative powers of the state legislature. Violating fundamental constitutional rights, including those protected by the First and Fifth Amendments, Windels forced teachers to lie about their political associations in order to avoid fingering friends and colleagues while under oath. Meanwhile, Windels built a case against the Communist party based on his and others misrepresentations—a “countersubversive” myth that teachers used their classrooms to propagandize for the party and to subvert American democracy

Able and Militant Fighters for Workers

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Bussel
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Union Organizing ◽  
Textile Workers ◽  
Transport Service ◽  
Shared Experience ◽  
Service Employees ◽  
American Federation ◽  
Congress Of Industrial Organizations ◽  
American Federation Of Teachers ◽  
Industrial Organizations

This chapter examines how their time in Chicago led Harold Gibbons and Ernest Calloway to the shared experience of industrial union organizing and reinforced their faith in the potential of working-class mobilization. It begins with an account of the Memorial Day Massacre in 1937 and how Chicago provided Calloway with his first opportunity to exercise leadership in a union setting. It then considers Gibbons's involvement in Chicago's labor community as member of American Federation of Teachers Local 346 as well as his role in helping Chicago workers organize under the banner of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). It also discusses Gibbons's work as an organizer for the Textile Workers Organizing Committee (TWOC) and looks at two men who played instrumental roles in shaping Calloway's career: Willard Townsend and John Yancey. Finally, it describes Calloway's involvement with the United Transport Service Employees of America (formerly International Brotherhood of Red Caps), during which he also began to articulate a concept of working-class citizenship.

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