Conservative Triumph Civil Rights Labor Activism Analysis

As noted in The American Yawp’s “The Triumph of the Right,” for decades America had been torn between two polarizing forces. On one hand, there was an increasing drive to offer Americans comprehensive social programs (as manifested in The New Deal and Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society) and to expand social enfranchisement to racial and economic minority groups. On the other hand, there were conservatives who resisted this, often in the name of anticommunism. Labor activists like Cesar Chavez in his Commonwealth Club Address, reminded America that poverty was still the reality of many living in America. Lilly Ledbetter’s testimony before Congress in 2008 about the discrimination faced by working women likewise highlights the need for swift, radical action to ensure equal work for equal pay.

Although the 1960s began as a time of positive changes, including the passing of historic civil rights legislation by the federal government, by the end of the 1970s, the mismanagement of the Vietnam War, social unrest and fear of militancy, and fears of the expansionist Soviet Union propelled right-wing candidates into office. This resulted in the election of arch-conservative Ronald Reagan. Although trends rightward or leftward in the middle-class political discourse are significant, Chavez’s speech is a reminder that poverty and discrimination is not something that comes and goes with political whims and elections. In 1984, Chavez reminded his listeners that 800,000 underage workers were still laboring to bring food to American tables. “Farm workers are not agricultural implements; they are not beasts of burden to be used and discarded” (Chavez). Chavez began as a farm labor activist but expanded his work to include the urban poor. Hispanics in all walks of life, he stated, were united by the discrimination they faced.

Lilly Ledbetter was a Goodyear employee who discovered that she was being paid 15-40% less for the same work as her male colleagues (Ledbetter). Ironically, this became permissible after the company instituted a new payment system where workers could be paid different amounts, despite doing the same jobs as their colleagues. This idea of meritocracy, and allowing corporations to pay employees as they chose, could be seen as commensurate with the kinds of conservative ideals celebrated by Reagan. But allowing subjective judgements by management, while prohibiting workers from discussing their salaries, enabled the company to discriminate against Ledbetter. Ledbetter was not entitled to retroactive pay, although her testimony before congress about what conditions were like for women when companies felt newly empowered to discriminate against them led to legislation prohibiting gender-based inequalities in pay: “My case is over. I will never receive the pay I deserve. But I will feel vindicated once again if I can play even the smallest role in ensuring that what happened to me will not happen to anyone else” (Ledbetter).

The fact that companies felt so emboldened to act in such a discriminatory fashion to Ledbetter underlines the subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle effects the rise of the right had in America. The ideology that women were best suited for domestic work resulted in women’s labor being devalued in the workplace, lesser pay, and ultimately less economic power in America. Similarly, the gutting of many social programs made it more difficult for laborers to live, work, and advocate for their rights. The idea that government is the problem, as advocated by Ronald Reagan, concealed the fact that government can play a vital role in preventing workers from being exploited by their employers, whether due to their race, position in the company, or their gender.