Existing comment:
Challenges and Change
"Progress in industry demands a mutuality of confidence between employer, employees and the buyer, for without our industry we have no jobs, and without jobs we have decay."
-- The Journal of the Electrical Workers and Operators, January 1931
After World War I, IBEW leaders sought to safeguard wartime gains through increased cooperation with electrical contractors and employers. The "open shop" movement and the Great Depression shattered any new sense of stability. Membership dropped from 121,000 in 1919 to less than 50,000 by 1933. The onset of World War II saw union ranks swell to meet the demands of the industrial boom. More than 35,000 IBEW members served in the armed forces during the war. |