In the long term, I think the best of the CIO ideals are still with us.

It's a commitment to expand into new and uncharted territory.

It's belief that workers can organize,

that they are a source of intelligence and creativity.

Its willingness to tackle the citadles of corporate power,

the courage of its organizers, they did face death threats, and they did also die trying to organize unions.

It was dangerous and not for the faint of heart. You just have to read Rosa Zoda's memoirs about organizing in the rubber industry or accounts of Operation Dixie organizing in the South,

its commitment to democracy and education,

its embrace of political and social unionism,

its attention to... and social unionism.

It's attention to universalistic policies

and raising the living standards for the majority.

Welcome to the last episode of Organized The Unorganized, a podcast from the Center for Work and Democracy at Arizona State University and a Jackman magazine.

I'm your host Benjamin Fong.

This is the episode devoted to key lessons of the CIO moment.

I interviewed 18 people for this podcast and asked them all about this question.

Unsurprisingly, they had very different answers, and I've tried to represent them all in this episode.

I'll start with the negative lessons.

Points where my guests were keen to note the differences between the 30s and the present moment,

and here their assertions tended to gravitate

around two themes. First the changed economic situation and second the issue of

labor law. David Brody and Ruth Billman.

...