Laboring in Los Angeles : Chicano autoworkers, community activism, and union leadership, 1965-1988
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- This dissertation chronicles the rise to leadership of Chicano labor activists within the United Auto Workers union who led the fight to keep Los Angeles-area auto plants open during the economic contraction of the 1970s. They joined the union in increasing numbers in the 1950s after the "second shifts" were added to the General Motors plants in South Gate and Van Nuys. By the early 1960s, they were transformed into "union men" with bedrock socialization into labor politics that enhanced their sense of masculine pride in their working abilities, which in turn emboldened them in their exchanges with GM managers and corporate officers as they executed union business. As the Chicano Movement took hold in Los Angeles, Chicano UAW leaders were engulfed into its politics as well as into the larger civil rights discourse around economic liberation, especially as it came to be symbolized for Chicanos by the farmworker movement of the United Farm Workers (UFW) union. This study analyzes the process by which Chicano unionists used their political training and leadership experience from the civil rights era, particularly their experience with direct-action resistance from the UFW's grape strike and boycott, to challenge declining union provisions within the UAW and what they believed to be corporate encroachment on workers' rights during the economic contractions of the 1970s and 1980s. Chicano autoworkers brought their steadfast, community-centered, class-conscious politics to bear on Los Angeles locals of the UAW during the 1970s, rising to elected positions in their own union due to their political experience and the appeal of their anti-corporate platforms as the domestic automobile industry was de-industrialized in the 1970s and 1980s. Following the closure of their plants, an important set of former UAW leaders carried this work into the 1990s and beyond, remaining active in Los Angeles politics.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic; electronic resource; remote |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Publication date | 2010 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Associated with | Chávez, Alicia Louise |
|---|---|
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of History. |
| Primary advisor | Camarillo, Albert |
| Thesis advisor | Camarillo, Albert |
| Thesis advisor | Freedman, Estelle B, 1947- |
| Thesis advisor | Ruíz, Vicki |
| Advisor | Freedman, Estelle B, 1947- |
| Advisor | Ruíz, Vicki |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Alicia L. Chávez. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of History. |
| Thesis | Ph. D. Stanford University 2010 |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2010 by Alicia Louise Chavez
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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