Description
Book Synopsis
On the Ground charts labor relations in the airline industry, unraveling the story of how baggage handlers--classified as unskilled workers--built tense but mutually useful alliances with their skilled coworkers such as aircraft mechanics and made tremendous gains in wages and working conditions, even in the era of supposedly 'complacent' labor in the 1950s and 1960s. Liesl Miller Orenic explains how airline jobs on the ground were constructed, how workers chose among unions, and how federal labor policies as well as industry regulation both increased and hindered airline workers'' bargaining power.
Trade Review“Provides a detailed history of institutions, regulatory regimes, technological evolution, and the development of the division of labor, wages and working conditions in the airline industry. This is an extremely useful work.”--
EH.Net"An important study."--
Enterprise and Society"An important study ... which should interest union activities and academics."--
Enterprise & Society"This wonderful treatment of an underexamined area of labor history is able to cut through mounds of tangled and confusing material to reveal a clear picture of how workers coped with an ever-changing industry. . . . An important book."--
Labor Studies Journal"With sympathy and careful detail, Orenic offers a well-documented counterpoint to the story of post-World War II labor complacency by showing how airline ground crews used militant tactics to build their unions in the 1950s and 1960s."--
Business History ReviewTable of ContentsList of Illustrations ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction 1
1. The U.S. Airlines through the 1930s 7
2. Airline Work during World War II 49
3. Organizing the Airline Industry, 1945-49 71
4. Bargaining in Prosperity, 1949-59 132
5. On the Ramp in the 1950s and 1960s 155
6. Militance and the Mutual Aid Pact, 1960-70 191
Epilogue: Deregulation and Beyond 217
List of Interviews 225
Manuscript Collections and Specialized Libraries 227
Notes 229
Index 271
