The trajectory of the United Auto Workers union illustrates the consolidation of top-down control in national unions in the USA in the decades after World War 2. A vast movement of hundreds of thousands of workers forming new independent unions unfolded in 1933–34. Another expression of this drive for self-organization from below was the creation of 1,734 AFL “federal locals.” These were local industrial unions that were not affiliated to any international union. They were directly attached to the AFL national office. Most were in the auto and rubber manufacturing industries. A.J. Muste estimated the auto industry federal locals had 60,000 members in Detroit and 150,000 elsewhere in 1934. The United Auto Workers union (UAW) came out of this movement. The problem with the “federal locals” was the way the AFL kept them on a tight leash. As Edward Levinson put it in Rise of the Auto Workers, “These federal locals turned out to be about as worthless as the company unions. They…could not bargain, strike, or draw up a contract for themselves.” When the auto industry federal locals demanded a national strike in March 1934, the AFL top leaders yielded to FDR’s requests for a postponement and then accepted … Continue reading United Auto Workers Union: A Case Study in Bureaucratic Unionism