Representation and Rebellion

by Rees, Jonathan

• ISBN13: 9780870819643
• ISBN10: 087081964X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-02-15
• Publisher: Univ Pr of Colorado

Summary

In response to the tragedy of the Ludlow Massacre, John D. Rockefeller Jr. introduced one of the nationÂ's first employee representation plans (ERPs) to the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company in 1915. With the advice of William Mackenzie King, who would go on to become prime minister of Canada, the planÂ--which came to be known as the Rockefeller PlanÂ--was in use until 1942 and became the model for ERPs all over the world. In Representation and Rebellion Jonathan Rees uses a variety of primary sourcesÂ--including records recently discovered at the companyÂ's former headquarters in Pueblo, ColoradoÂ--to tell the story of the Rockefeller Plan and those who lived under it, as well as to detail its various successes and failures. Taken as a whole, the history of the Rockefeller Plan is not the story of ceaseless oppression and stifled militancy that its critics might imagine, but it is also not the story of the creation of a paternalist panacea for labor unrest that Rockefeller hoped it would be. Addressing key issues of how this early twentieth-century experiment fared from 1915 to 1942, Rees argues that the Rockefeller Plan was a limited but temporarily effective alternative to independent unionism in the wake of the Ludlow Massacre. The book will appeal to business and labor historians, political scientists, and sociologists, as well as those studying labor and industrial relations.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	p. ix
Preface	p. xi
Acknowledgments	p. xix
Introduction	p. 1
Memories of a Massacre	p. 13
Student and Teacher	p. 37
Between Two Extremes	p. 61
Divisions in the Ranks	p. 85
The Rockefeller Plan in Action: The Mines	p. 111
The Rockefeller Plan in Action: The Mill	p. 135
New Union, Same Struggle	p. 159
Depression, Frustration, and Real Competition	p. 181
Conclusion	p. 207
The Colorado Industrial Plan (also known as the Rockefeller Plan) and the Memorandum of Agreement	p. 221
Employe Representatives at CF&I Coal Mines, 1915-1928, and Employee Representatives at Minnequa Works, 1916-1928	p. 239
Note	p. 267
Bibliographic Essay	p. 313
Index	p. 317
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