The Skilled Auto Worker: A Social Portrait

Before the organization of industrial unions, skilled workers in America were truly an “aristocracy of labor.” Commanding higher wages and a near-monopoly with their skills, they worked in isolation from the rest of the American work force. Most of the skilled workers were building tradesmen or members of craft unions such as the Railroad Engineers.

With the advent of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), the skilled workers in the auto shops were organized for th...