About the Book:On the Ground charts labor relations in the airline industry, unraveling the story of how baggage handlers–classified as unskilled workers–built tense but mutually useful alliances with their skilled coworkers such as aircraft mechanics and made tremendous gains in wages and working conditions, even in the era of supposedly “complacent” labor in the 1950s and 1960s. Liesl Miller Orenic explains how airline jobs on the ground were constructed, how workers chose among unions, and how federal labor policies as well as industry regulation both increased and hindered airline workers’ bargaining power.Table of Contents: List of Illustrations ix Acknowledgments xi Introduction 1 1. The U.S. Airlines through the 1930s 7 2. Airline Work during World War II 49 3. Organizing the Airline Industry, 1945-49 71 4. Bargaining in Prosperity, 1949-59 132 5. On the Ramp in the 1950s and 1960s 155 6. Militance and the Mutual Aid Pact, 1960-70 191 Epilogue: Deregulation and Beyond 217 List of Interviews 225 Manuscript Collections and Specialized Libraries 227 Notes 229 Index 271