Oral Histories

Interview of Wyndham Mortimer

Vice-president of the United Automobile Workers union and member of the Communist Party.
Subtitle:
Reflections of a Labor Organizer
Series:
Z: Orphan Interviews pre 1999
Topic:
Social Movements
Labor Movement
Biographical Note:
Vice-president of the United Automobile Workers union and member of the Communist Party.
Interviewer:
Dixon, Elizabeth I.
Interviewee:
Mortimer, Wyndham
Supporting Documents:
Records related to the interview are located in the office of the UCLA Library's Center for Oral History Research.
Interviewer Background and Preparation:
The interview was conducted by Elizabeth I. Dixon, Head, UCLA Oral History Program; B.A., international relations, University of Southern California: M.L.S., UCLA School of Library Service.
Language:
English
Copyright:
Regents of the University of California, UCLA Library.
Abstract:
Father's activities in Knights of Labor; life in Pennsylvania company town; working in coal mines, 1900-1905; employment at White Motor, 1917; organizing federal union at White Motor, 1933; fight for international industrial unionization; activities of Trade Union Unity League; union organizing at General Motors plants; sit-down strike in Flint, Michigan; court injunctions and police activity; John L. Lewis, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Frances Perkins; factional struggles within Congress of Industrial Organizations; unionizing aircraft industry in California and Washington; effect of red-baiting on labor movement; working for State, County, and Municipal Workers of America and International Union of Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers in Los Angeles during World War II; Walter P. Reuther; reflections on past and present labor issues.