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1930-1939 Storm Clouds of Depression and War

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The IBEW took advantage of the more-permissive organizing climate and began a new, aggressive membership policy. New members could join the Brotherhood by paying reduced admission fees and a lower per capita. ‘These “B” members (as distinguished from full-fledged “A” members) could not receive death and pension benefits from the union (their dues didn’t go into those funds). It proved a very useful organizing tool in unorganized utility and manufacturing plants. Membership continued to increase.

Other unions also took advantage of the favorable climate, especially those not included under the craft-oriented umbrella of the AFL. John L. Lewis, president of the United Mine Workers, launched a wide-ranging campaign to boost UMW membership and called for the formation of other industry wide unions. Originally formed under the auspices of the AFL, the Committee for Industrial Organization, under Lewis’s leadership, changed its name in 1936 to the Congress of Industrial Organizations and set out on its own. The CIO organized steel workers, auto workers and other large-scale manufacturing industries and pioneered the “sit-down” strike. They faced strong opposition but soon rose to become a formidable force in the labor movement.

A Local 339, Thunder Bay, Ontario, 1938 labor Day float parades in Port Arthur, Ontario.

The IBEW International Convention last convened in Miami in 1929 and suspended during the Depression, after 1941 was to be suspended again. In 1939 the swirling storm clouds of war were over Europe. An obscure radical named Adolf Hitler and his Nazi party had taken power in Germany. He had strong ties to the Fascist Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, who had just invaded Ethiopia, and to Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, who had just won the bloody Spanish Civil War with the assistance of Germany’s bombers. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain met Hitler in Munich in 1938 and left proclaiming, “Peace in our time.” But on September 1, 1939-after marching his troops unopposed into Austria, Czechoslovakia and the Rhineland during the previous several years—Hitler directed his air force to attack Poland. The world was never the same.

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1930-1939 Storm Clouds of Depression and War

1933 Franklin D. Roosevelt becomes 32nd U.S. president; first woman named to U.S. cabinet, Frances Perkins, secretary of labor; U.S. banks closed by FDR; Congress's "100 days" special session results in the National Recovery Act (Section 7a gives unions right to bargain), Tennessee Valley Authority Act and other New Deal legislation; Prohibition ends in U.S. as 21st Amendment is ratified; Adolf Hitler named Germany chancellor, Nazi opposition purged; Stalin opposition crushed in Russia; FM radio developed by Edwin Armstrong; U.S. abandons gold standard; founding convention of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (Canada) held with farm/labour representatives - sought to achieve greater equality and justice for everyone; 700,000 unemployed in Canada (about 26 percent of wage-earning population).






1934 Title of "Fuhrer" assumed by Hitler; "Long March" of Chinese communists begins; First National Labor Legislation Conference held to work out national labor legislation program (held annually 'til 1955); U.S. joins International Labour Organization; power of National Labor Board to held representation elections extended by executive order of FDR.






1935 FDR signs Social Security Act; National Labor Relations Act (Wagner Act) passed, provides broad rights for unions to organize and represent workers, negotiate collective bargaining agreements, and protect workers from employer coercion against unions; craft vs. industrial unionism debated at AFL convention - craft unionism wins; John L. Lewis, UMW, among other industrial-union leaders, forms Committee for Industrial Organization; Guffey Act passed to stabilize bituminous coal industry and improve labor conditions (labor-relations provisions declared unconstitutional in 1936); first practical helicopter developed; jet-aircraft engines invented; government role in economy set forth by John Keynes; "On to Ottawa Trek," conducted by about 4,000 relief-camp workers demanding work and 50-cents-per-hour wages, results in rioting - leaders jailed; Will Rogers dies in plane crash in Alaska; Louisiana Senator Huey Long assassinated.