Cold War in the Working Class: The Rise and Decline of the United Electrical Workers (Suny Series in American Labor History)

This book tells the story of the rise and decline of the United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of America (UE) from 1933 to 1990. Once the third-largest industrial union in the United States, the UE was the most powerful left-wing institution in U.S. history and arguably the most significant victim of the anti-communist purges that marked post-World War II America. This is an institutional study of the formation of the UE and the struggle for its control by left-wing and right-wing factions. Unlike most books on unions during the Cold War, this study carries the story up to the present, showing the long-term effects of the ideological battles.

Ronald L. Filippelli is Professor of Labor Studies and Industrial Relations at Penn State University, and is the author of several books, including Labor in the USA: A History and American Labor and Postwar Italy. Mark D. McColloch is Associate Professor of History at the University of Pittsburgh, Greensburg, and is the author of White Collar Labor in Transition.