I believe that the most influential labor leader during the 1930s was John L. Lewis. He was the leader of the United Mine Workers of American (UMWA) from 1920s to 1960s, and is largely associated with shaping the labor movement during the Great Depression (Alinsky, 2017). At the time, coal, mining, and steel industries have been some of the most dangerous and difficult places of work. Nevertheless, tens of thousands of people across the US were employed in the mines. What John L. Lewis did was not just fight for the rights of miners, and achieving great victories there, such as wage increases and medical payments (Alinsky, 2017). His greatest achievement is saving unions during the difficult period of 1930-1935, finding ways of getting 92% of all miners organized, and ensuring their capability to perform collective bargaining.
Besides saving the miner unions and providing a blueprint for other industries to effectively unionize, John L. Lewis had a great influence in President’s Roosevelt’s New Deal campaign (Alinsky, 2017). Despite being raised in a republican household, he had the foresight to see that his usual party of choice offered no solutions to overcoming the Great Depression. His support of the Democratic president served as a major unifying symbol to the nation. Lewis later doubled down on his support, founding Labor Non-Partisan League, which played a significant role in the re-election of President Roosevelt (Alinsky, 2017). Finally, utilizing the massive popularity and credit acquired among the workers during the 1930s, he successfully promoted the Federal Mine Safety Act of 1952, which helped improve mine safety and serving as an example for similar acts in other related industry (Alinsky, 2017). Essentially, it paved the way to modern employee-worker relations as we know it. Because of these great accomplishments and an enduring legacy, I think that John L. Lewis was the most influential labor leader in the 1930s.
References
Alinsky, S. (2017). John L. Lewis: An unauthorized biography. Pickle Partners Publishing.