employment relations essay

Effective Employment Relations Essay

The process of recruiting new employees has become very crucial in the contemporary world. This is applicable to both small and large organizations of any structure or size. Organizations are required to have effective methods of recruiting and retaining current positions of employees in an organization. This plays a significant role in determining the performance of an organization.

Employment relations refer to the measures that are employed in an organization in order to facilitate good relationship between employees and employers.

In other words, employment relations involve those activities that are geared towards the resolving and prevention of those problems that arise from the work of individual’s performance within an organization. It also entails the measures that are employed in promoting absorption of top performing workers within an organization.

In the contemporary world, many organizations have realized the need of facilitating effective employment relations in its operations. The most competitive organizations are the ones that have managed to maintain effective employment relations in their operations.

However, there is a major concern on whether these needs are taken into consideration bearing in mind that we are in the era where organized labor has significantly declined.

In every organization, leaders must be armed with adequate advice on how they can improve the performance of its employees. In order to achieve this, the employer must consider the disciplinary actions as well as the regulatory requirements (Deery 1999).

The employers are also required to consider the necessary procedures that should be applied while addressing employees’ needs within an organization. This will significantly contribute towards promoting a good relationship between employees and the employer. This plays a significant role in promoting the organizational goals.

In an effort to promote good relationship between employees and the employers, employees should be provided with adequate information. Armed with adequate information, employees will be in a position to understand the organizational goals and policies.

Such information will help employees to conduct themselves accordingly in order to meet these goals. For instance, employees will be informed on the procedures that employers are required to follow in promoting or repositioning them within an organization (Anton 2011).

The employer also has a responsibility of providing employees with the necessary information that will enable them to correct their poor performance both in the work place and off the workplace (Locke, Kochan and Piore).

Again, this will play a significant role in promoting good relationship between employees and employers. When employees are fully informed, they will for instance be ware of the required procedures that are acceptable in passing on their grievances.

There are a number of reasons why every organization must promote effective employment relation. By maintaining good relationship between employers and employees, an organization is able to increase employees’ motivation, morale and consequently their productivity levels. This is because the employees are promised of protection from any kind of exploitation.

Another advantage of effective employment relations is that it promotes fairness in an organization. For instance, the employer is required to employ people without discrimination. Promotion in the workplace is also guided by fairness. This ensures that only qualified individuals get particular positions.

By maintaining effective relationship between employers and workers, an organization can reduce its costs significantly. This is because a firm is able to avoid time wastage through employees’ strikes or demonstrations. In stead, employees will be motivated hence committed in meeting organizational goals.

Reference List

Anton. 2011. Employment Relations Web. Available at: < https://www.essays24.com/essay/Employment-Relations/58620.html >

Locke, R., Kochan, T. and Piore, M., 1995. Employment Relations in a Changing World Economy. U.S.A., MIT Press.

Deery, S., 1999. Employment Relations: Individualization and Union Exclusion: An International Study . Sydney, Federation Press.

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• To define employment relations and describe how it operates across all levels of business and a range of disciplines
• To identify the major participants in employment relations
• To show how the balance between collective and individual employment agreements and rights has changed over time
• To examine the core principle and content of employment agreements, including the distinction between employees and contractors
• To highlight how the roles of the Employment Institutions and legal precedent have influenced the practical application of employment relations changes

Introduction

Most of us are either employed in paid or unpaid work, or employ people ourselves and, therefore, have some understanding of what employment means. Employment relations are often described as the interaction between three major groups: employers, employees, and the government. But it is more than this; employment relations are dynamic and complex and what occurs in the workplace is influenced by the wider society. Governments change employment laws from time to time, and courts interpret these laws when they rule on cases. This creates precedents – new understandings about the application of law, which essentially become new laws.

Rapid technological change has resulted in both a change in the type of jobs available, and the way that work is done. The ‘future of work’ has become a catch cry and is often associated with very positive or negative predictions about job opportunities or disappearance of jobs (see discussion in Chapter 6). Some of these changes are already detectable. Thus, the ‘standard employment relationship’ – an assumption that work is full time, stable, with set hours and unionised – is no longer the case for most New Zealanders. Many people work part time or long hours and job and income insecurity appear on the rise. Technology is disrupting boundaries between work and leisure, something that has become pronounced after the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. Businesses often want the flexibility of longer operating hours and variable staff rosters and can use contracting models to better control wage and salary costs. Thus, many people work as contractors and contracting has become dominant in certain industries and occupations. Recently, contractors have started to provide services administered by various web-based platforms as part of the ‘gig economy’.

Overall, there are many influences beyond the local and national labour markets. Workers in New Zealand compete in globalised job markets as firms outsource production to countries with lower labour costs. Furthermore, government policies facilitate immigration and emigration, allowing the New Zealand workforce and its skill and education makeup to change faster than it would without international labour mobility.

This chapter defines ‘employment relations’, the different levels of employment relations and it examines the key ‘actors’ who influence employment relations. The chapter also overviews the basic elements of an employment agreement and will in subsequent chapters deal with historical and current changes to the employment agreement itself and to its key components such as pay, hours, leave and dispute resolution. The chapter will also highlight the distinction between employees and contractors and why this distinction came to be of great importance. Finally, we focus on employment institutions which deals with disagreements over employment agreements and disputes in workplaces. As there has been rapid change to employment relations – including an expansion of employee rights and less collective bargaining coverage – there has been considerable focus on court-based employment decisions.

Finally, there are major disagreements about core employment relations issues and how to interpret the above-mentioned changes and influences. How we view employment relations is contentious as we each have our own outlook (or perspective) based on our individual set of beliefs and values (as discussed in Chapter 2). Often, we tend to align ourselves with those who share our views and the various perspectives can be found in disagreements between the key parties in employment relations as well as political decisions on legislative frameworks and employee rights (see Chapters 3, 4 and 5).

What are employment relations?

The definition of employment relations has broadened over time and is still evolving. The subject of employment relations has developed an interdisciplinary approach using concepts and ideas derived from several disciplines, including sociology, economics, psychology, history and political science (see Chapter 2). Our current definition incorporates conceptual elements from both UK industrial relations and USA labour relations as well as from human resource management theory. The issue of collective disputes between workers and employers has dominated traditional definitions of employment relations, with a fixation on conflict between employers, unions and employees. As shown below, there have been considerable changes recently as employment relations has superseded the traditional concepts of industrial or labour relations and their pre-occupation with collective bargaining and industrial disputes.

Power is an important aspect of employment relations. Power refers to the ability to influence the behaviour of others to get what you want. In an employment relations context, power is important within organisations as different actors have different levels of power in that organisation. Does a low-paid employee have the same level of power when discussing workplace issues as the manager or business owner? How do these power differentials impact on relationships and outcomes? Additionally, power in the wider society is also important because different groups and interests – including government, employer groups and unions – try to negotiate policy outcomes that favour their own group or interests and reflect their values and priorities.

Traditionally, industrial/labour relations were concerned with ‘macro’ questions, including how employers and businesses are a part of the wider community and how they play an important role in society. In particular, industrial/labour relations have focused on three aspects of the employment relationship, namely: the key parties (employees, employers, and government), the processes of collective bargaining (including conflict resolution), and the outcomes of these processes (Bamber et al., 2016). In particular, the way collective conflict was regulated has received plenty of attention. Regulating industrial conflict involves the development of formal rules – such as written employment contracts and policies – and of informal rules – such as custom and practice (see Chapters 13 and 14 in Rasmussen, 2022). Thus, the focus is on structures that regulate matters of conflict arising out of the employment relationships which includes the regulation of power relationships in the workplace. Additionally, industrial/labour relations have traditionally concentrated on unionised, male, manual workers employed in large factories and have tended to ignore workers in service industries, workers in small workplaces and non-unionised employees.

The rise of Human Resource Management (HRM) since the 1980s has also had a major influence on our understanding of employment relationships. HRM emphasises a strategic approach to achieving organisational goals and involves a series of management prescriptions designed to ensure the efficiency and commitment of employees (Boxall & Purcell, 2011). The focus of HRM is, therefore, on the individual organisation and the way the individual worker can be managed in order to enhance the achievement of broader organisational objectives. As a result, HRM has been linked closely with motivation in the form of psychological and economic dependency. The emphasis is on winning the ‘hearts and minds’ of the workforce in order to achieve the common goals of the organisation (Bratton & Gold, 2017; McAndrew et al., 2018).

The traditional views of both industrial/labour relations and HRM have been challenged while, at the same time, extracting the more useful aspects from the two disciplines. As a result, the distinctions between industrial/labour relations and HRM have become blurred, creating an over-arching discipline called ‘employment relations’ (Bamber et al., 2016; Kelly, 2012). This shift in definition has the advantage that it extends the boundaries of industrial/labour relations and HRM to include all aspects of the two approaches. Most important of all, it has incorporated both the ‘macro’ or broader approach adopted by industrial/labour relations and the ‘micro’ or organisational approach of HRM. It is recognised, therefore, that the employment relationship does not exist in isolation and can be found on many levels: international, national, industry, organisational and workplace levels.

Levels of employment relations

What occurs in New Zealand employment relations is often influenced by international trends and events. International trade agreements, the operations of multinationals and the pressure to conform to international labour conventions and treaties all have an impact on the way employment relations are conducted in this country. For example, multinational companies’ movement in and out of a country typically depend upon whether or not that country’s labour and compliance costs will benefit the multinational organisation financially. Concern has been expressed in New Zealand about the way multinationals influence our wages and conditions by choosing to set up their manufacturing operations in nearby poorer countries with weaker employment protection legislation, in direct competition with New Zealand manufacturers. Employment relations at a national level are also influenced by international institutions, such as the International Labour Organization (ILO), of which New Zealand was a founding member. Since its foundation in 1919, the ILO has been involved in the promotion of international labour standards (see https://www.ilo.org/global/lang–en/index.htm ). In recent years, the ILO has become more important through promotion of Decent Work principles (see Ferraro et al., 2015) which have also influenced legislative changes and public policy discussions in New Zealand.

Most decisions regarding New Zealand employment standards are taken at a national level. Employment standards are contained in national statutes that govern how people are employed, their minimum level of pay, and their conditions of work. For example, the Human Rights Act 1993 establishes anti-discrimination standards; the Minimum Wages Protection Act 1983 sets standards for minimum wages, and the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 provides guidelines for health and safety in the workplace (see Chapter 5). Economic, social and welfare policies constructed by government also have major consequences for both employers and employees throughout New Zealand. For example, the government policy decision to deregulate the automotive industry in the late 1980s and to reduce tariffs resulted in the closure of car manufacturing plants and other related businesses. Likewise, the changes to immigration rules during the Covid-19 pandemic had major labour market repercussions and created recruitment problems in several industries.

Although there is a national framework of employment relations standards (see Chapters 4 and 5), general parameters for wages and conditions are, more often than not, set at the industry level. For example, a qualified motor mechanic with three years’ experience will have a good idea of how much they should be paid by making relative comparisons with other mechanics who have the same level of qualification and experience. Wages and conditions within industries can be set either directly or more indirectly through flow-on effects. Wage rates and specific conditions can also be negotiated directly between the representatives of employers and employees at an industry level (see the discussion of Fair Pay Agreements in Chapter 4). In the last three decades, there has been a shift from collective, industry-based wages and conditions to workplace-based, individual employment agreements (see Chapters 3 and 4). This has created a much wider divergence in pay and conditions; not only between industries but also between occupations, workplaces and individual jobs within particular organisations.

Corporate decisions can have either positive or detrimental effects on an organisation’s employment relations. Strategic decisions, such as the introduction of new technology, the way the company is structured, the opening or closing of new plants and offices, or the introduction of new management practices, will affect the lives of the organisation’s employees. Decisions taken at the corporate level about redundancies, less job security, etc., are also likely to have a detrimental effect on the workforce. However, some employers have purposely adopted human resource policies and implemented corporate strategies that will enhance their employment relations as well as their public image. But as organisations change over time, so do their strategies. For example, in the past New Zealand-owned companies have had strategies that fostered harmonious employment relations and longer term commitment to their company (see Chapter 6). But as the companies changed ownership and senior managers left, new managerial strategies were implemented to reflect the new ethos of the organisation. It is at this level, too, that HRM strategies – such as good communication and innovative reward systems – are most effective in motivating the workforce and improving employee morale and satisfaction.

However, it is at the workplace level that the employment relationship is most keenly felt. The day-to-day activities and how they are managed will often determine the quality of the relationship between supervisors and staff. For example, as a result of the replacement of complex organisational hierarchies with team-based organisational structures, some employees can have a large degree of autonomy over how they work. This influences aspects, such as the allocation of tasks, the design of the job, the allocation of overtime, and so on. The move toward team-based structures has also produced a change in titles – the terms ‘supervisor’ and ‘staff’ have been replaced with ‘team leader’ and ‘team members’ – but the question is: has it changed hierarchical divisions? The devolvement of responsibilities to the workplace level in the last decades has had a significant impact not only on how we work but also on our employment relationships in general. Likewise, greater employment flexibility and atypical employment arrangements have also impacted on employment relationships and this is, in part, why there is such a debate about the potential influences from various ‘future of work’ scenarios.

Employment relations can be studied, therefore, at the international, national, industry, corporate and workplace levels, and can be affected by external factors, such as technological change, market conditions, societal and political power shifts. It is clear, therefore, that the nature of employment relations can only be fully understood in the context of, and in relation to, wider socio-economic, political and legal structures.

Interest groups

The subject of employment relations is also concerned with the study of how individuals, groups or organisations desire their interests to be represented (collectively or individually), and what these interests are; for example, the amount of pay, hours worked, or production output. Interest groups are organised groups of people – who are not political parties – who come together to influence laws and policies.

As mentioned above, employment relations laws and policies are not created in a vacuum. There are many competing interest groups who aim to influence how employment regulations are enacted and implemented. Indeed, some argue that national decisions concerning the creation of employment regulations are essentially a compromise between the wishes of powerful interest groups and those of the government (see CIPD, 2017). According to this view, the government is to be regarded as serving primarily the interests of those whom it regulates, namely the employers and employees. At the corporate level, employers and employees are in competition with one another for power and control over the decision-making process, knowledge, information and technology, though more power and control normally rest with management.

The government

Historically, the government has played a central role in New Zealand’s employment relations, although the nature of its activity has varied from direct, centralised government control to a more hands-off approach whereby markets are left to organise employment relations with less state intervention. Irrespective of the extent of government involvement in employment relations, it is a critical player, creating the framework within which employers and employees interact. This framework influences the balance of power between employer and employee interest groups and provides structures for conflict resolution. This relationship is bound by conventions developed over the last century with the government establishing an employment relations framework through legislation and legal institutions (see Chapter 3).

Government departments have the responsibility for regulating and promoting compliance with the raft of employment legislation that deals with issues like working conditions and minimum wages (for example, through the Labour Inspectorate in the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment [MBIE]). During the 19th century, concerns about the working conditions of women and children, as documented in the 1890 Sweating Commission, led to the establishment of a system of statutory minimum conditions contained in the Factories Act 1891 and later the Industrial and Conciliation Act 1894.

Subsequently throughout the 20th century, legislation was updated with some Acts being amended and others replaced. Like Australia, New Zealand had adopted an award system. Under the award system, different award documents contained occupation- and industry-specific minimum wages and conditions, including, the level of pay, hours of work, special rates for overtime, dangerous or piece work, etc. However, the system ceased with the enactment of the Employment Contracts Act 1991 and, as a consequence, employment relations statutes, such as the Minimum Wage Act and the Holidays Act, have become more important as they now provide the minimum standards.

The current legislative framework, the Employment Relations Act (ERA) 2000, therefore, is supported by other legislation that sits alongside and stipulates, for example, adult and youth minimum wage rates, paid annual leave requirements and personal grievance and disputes procedures. The statutory minimum standards contained in these supportive employment relations statutes are regulated by MBIE’s Labour Inspectorate while employment or ‘personal’ grievances are enforced through the Employment Institutions. Personal grievances and employee rights are discussed later this chapter.

New Zealand employment laws and procedures are also formed and defined by the country’s legal system. Under the ERA 2000, employment matters are handled by the MBIE’s Employment Mediation Services, the Employment Relations Authority and Employment Court. The government continues to separate out employment matters from other legal issues as a way of ensuring that it retains a role in the regulation of employment relationships and that employees have direct access to procedures which allow them to seek redress for employer actions (McAndrew, 2010; Rasmussen & Greenwood, 2014).

However, periodically, there has been pressure both inside and outside the New Zealand Parliament to abolish specialist employment law institutions (Rasmussen, 2009, pp. 83-84). The desire to discontinue a separate employment legal system was based, to a large extent, on the employers’ criticism of the Employment Court’s decisions. In particular, such criticism was levelled at the Court’s firm intention to uphold the notion of ‘procedural fairness’, its recognition of and accessibility to employee representatives, its opposition to harsh and oppressive contracts, and its views on home workers’ contractual status (Anderson & Hughes, 2014; Simpkin, 2006).

It should also be remembered that the government is, itself, not only a regulator and arbitrator, but also a substantial employer. Many of its employees work in essential service areas such as policing, defence, health, education and welfare. The government is also an indirect employer through its procurement practices (Ravenswood & Kaine, 2015). Many New Zealanders are employed in either privately-owned companies or non-governmental agencies that receive substantial funding from the government. People working in both private and public sectors are covered by the ERA 2000 but public servants are also covered by the State Sector Act 1988. The latter Act follows public sector legal tradition by making provision for a separate negotiating body, the State Services Commission.

Since 1988, the employment practices of the public sector have fallen more in line with those of the private sector. Chief executives of government departments now have the freedom to employ, dismiss, promote and discipline staff – with the exception of senior executives. Most government departments have expert employment relations advisers to ensure good practices and that the departments meet the requirement of being a ‘good employer’ as set out in the State Sector Act.

There are many groups that represent a range of employers’ interests. For example, there are Chambers of Commerce, industry and trade associations, and employer groups such as Business New Zealand that specialise in employment matters. In the 1980s and 1990s, employer lobby groups placed increasing pressure on the Labour and National governments to enact radical labour market reforms. At the heart of their argument for labour market reforms was the notion that the traditional protection of trade unions and centralised collective bargaining was, in fact, diminishing the rights of both employers and employees, undermining business competitiveness and creating unemployment (Harbridge, 1993).

One of the more effective employer lobby groups in New Zealand was the Business Roundtable (NZBRT). Founded in 1985, membership of the Roundtable was by invitation only and restricted to the chief executives of New Zealand’s largest companies. The NZBRT promoted a consistent view of employment relations, in line with ‘right-wing’ or libertarian ideology (Harris & Twiname, 1998; Kelsey, 1997). This included vocal support to end compulsory trade union membership and promotion of more individualised employment relations. The NZBRT had considerable influence on public policy during the 1985-1996 period. However, it lost the ear of governments from the late 1990s onwards. In 2012, they merged with the New Zealand Institute to form a new think-tank, The New Zealand Initiative.

However, far more representative of employers’ interests are the employers’ and manufacturers’ associations situated in the main regions. Business New Zealand was created after a merger of the Employers’ Federation and the Manufacturer’s Federation in 2001, and has specialist divisions for representing, at a national level, the interests of exporters, manufacturers, and its Major Companies Group. The employers’ and manufacturers’ associations also provide a range of services – from training to legal representation – for their members. However, like the trade unions, they have had to adjust to the deregulated economy and rapidly changing employment environment of the last decades.

The other significant representative of employers’ interests is the Chambers of Commerce. Established over 160 years ago the branches are also located in the main New Zealand regions. Like the employers’ and manufacturers’ associations, they offer a range of employment relations/HRM services. Finally, there are business groups that have been formed to respond to a particular issue, for example, the Business Leaders’ Health and Safety Forum. Launched in 2010, the Forum is a coalition of business and government leaders representing about 300 private and public sector organisations with the aim of improving the performance of workplace health and safety in New Zealand.

Trade unions

Trade unions have represented the interests of New Zealand employees in one form or another since the 19th century. Their role was supported and aided by earlier government legislation which ensured compulsory union membership and access to disputes procedures. However, the Employment Contracts Act 1991 abolished the unions’ monopoly position as an employee interest group. As a result, there was an immediate decline in trade union membership. The loss of members was precipitated by the move to individual employment contracts, by disaffected members leaving the unions and by frequent job shifts by employees. From May 1991 to December 1999, union membership fell by more than 50% to 302 405, and union density (the number of union members as a percentage of the workforce) declined from 41.5% to 17.0%, although the number of trade unions stayed roughly the same (see Chapter 3).

This decline severely weakened the power base of the two major employee associations that represent a consortium of trade unions, namely the Trade Union Federation (TUF) and the Council of Trade Unions (CTU). The Council of Trade Unions (CTU) was the larger of the two and, in 2000, represented 21 affiliated trade unions and more than 240 000 employees. By 2001, a merger of the CTU and TUF had brought state and private-sector unions under a single umbrella grouping. Mergers of unions have continued and, in 2016, the CTU represented 31 unions and more than 320 000 employees.

However, trade unions had already started to consolidate their position at the end of the 1990s and, with the introduction of the ERA 2000, they have managed to stabilise their membership numbers, though with private sector unions facing an uphill battle (see Tables 3.1 and 4.1). In addition, there have been a number of mergers creating ‘super unions’. For example, in 1996, the Engineers Union merged with the remnant of the Communication and Energy Workers Union and the Print, Packaging and Media Union. This created the largest private-sector union, the New Zealand Amalgamated Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union (EPMU), with nearly 60 000 members. In 2015, EPMU further merged, with the Service and Food Workers’ Union, to create E tū. In 2011, the FIRST Union was created through an amalgamation of the National Distribution Union (organising primarily workers in the transport and warehousing industries) and Finsec (organising workers in the bank and finance industries). Finally, the Public Service Association (PSA) has sustained a strong presence in the public sector as has other public sector unions, such as the teachers’ unions, the nurses’ union and the doctors’ unions.

There have also been new union organising strategies, of which the Living Wage Campaign is one noteworthy example. The Living Wage Campaign is a response to the phenomena of working poor, in which working full-time on a minimum wage is not enough to meet living costs, but also is not enough to live with dignity and to be an active citizen in New Zealand communities (Carr et al., 2018). By approaching and working with community groups including churches, the Service and Food Workers’ Union (now part of E tū)  campaign had, by 2016, managed to get about 60 accredited employers to pay 19.80 NZD per hour (compared with the minimum wage of 15.25 NZD per hour.)

In summary , the interests of the three main groups can be represented on a continuum. At one end are the employers who want to ensure that they are not unreasonably impeded from managing their businesses and making profits. At the other end are the employees who desire fair wages and conditions and some say in the way they work. The government lies somewhere in between these two groups, providing a buffer for the employees and attempting to control the extremes of the employers. In reality, however, the employers’ and employees’ representatives do not restrict themselves just to workplace matters but endeavour to influence government policies on a wide range of issues – from paying fire service levies to social welfare and benefit payments.

Employee versus contractor?

Another key feature of employment relations is the distinction between contracts of service and contracts for service . This distinction has evolved over centuries and has been carried through to the current legislative framework. Contracts of service or employment contracts cover employees working for wages or salaries; that is, employees in factories, shops, offices or professional occupations. Contracts for services cover self-employed contractors, who work for others under contract to provide distinct jobs or services. This involves tradespeople, taxi-drivers and many professionals such as lawyers and doctors. That is, the contractor may do the same tasks as an employee, but their legal status is different from that of an employee: contractors are not covered by the employment relations legislative framework in New Zealand. Contractors are, therefore, not entitled to receive the so-called ‘minimum code’ of statutory protections, such as holidays and other types of paid leave, minimum wages or equal pay. Certain implied terms that are present in every New Zealand employment agreement by statute or common law are not present in ordinary contracts for service (Lamare et al., 2014).

With new forms of jobs and individualised employment and working arrangements, more and more employment situations have arisen where it is difficult to distinguish between employees and contractors. This is often the result of new organisational strategies (in particular, the search for labour flexibility), attempts to reduce income taxation or attempts to avoid the statutory employee protection stipulated by the ERA 2000 and its associated Acts. Determining whether a worker is a contractor or an employee can also be difficult but there are some basic distinctions, as presented in Table 1.1.

Sources: Rasmussen & Lamm, 2002, p. 55; Lamare et al., 2014

Different courts have also decided whether a worker is a contractor or an employee, but the rulings can be conflicting. For example, in the New Zealand case Bryson v Three Foot Six Ltd. (2003, 2005), the Employment Relations Authority decided Mr. Bryson was a contractor but the Employment Court and the Supreme Court decided Mr. Bryson was an employee (see the Special Issue of the New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations , 2011, 36(3), for a more detailed discussion of these decisions and the so-called ‘Hobbit’ legislation in 2010).

Notwithstanding the different legal decisions, the courts have developed a number of tests over the years in order to establish whether a person is working under an employment contract or under a contract for services (Anderson & Hughes, 2014). There are basically four such tests:

• the control test
• the organisation test
• the business test
• the composite test (involving all of the previous three tests).

These tests are important because they indicate key characteristics of an employment relationship. The control test, for example, indicates that the employment relationship is a power and authority relationship. This authority is often referred to as ‘managerial prerogative’ – that is, the ability to manage other people and to issue demands. However, some employees can have a significant amount of discretion in how they do their work and as a result the control aspects become less clear-cut. This is the case, for example, with many highly skilled employees such as computer specialists, academics, legal or financial specialists.

This discretion is important in the organisation test which asks whether the employee is part of an organisation or whether the work the employee does is central to the organisation. The business test attempts to establish whether the person is running a business or whether the person is dependent on an organisation. Finally, the composite test is an assessment of the employment status that takes the three previous tests into account. This test is probably the way that court decisions are moving as the distinction between being an employee or a self-employed contractor becomes more and more blurred. However, in particular cases, the court will place greater emphasis on one or another of the tests, as appropriate.

In summary, while contractors retain rights and protections under general contract law, these rights, however, do not equate to those defined by employment laws designed to protect employees from what the ERA 2000 calls ‘the inherent inequality of bargaining power in employment relationships’. In the next section, we will explore employee rights, employee agreements and institutions in more detail.

Employee rights and the Employment Institutions

Under the conciliation and arbitrations system (1894-1990), the legislative framework had a focus on collective bargaining and collective agreements while individual agreements were dealt with under common law. This meant that many employees had no access to pursue employee rights through the Employment Institutions. This changed with the ECA 1991 where all employees had an employment contract/agreement and their employee rights could be pursued through the Employment Institutions (see Chapter 3). This is still the case under the ERA 2000, though this Act uses the term employment agreements (and so will this book) and is more prescriptive about the types of agreements allowed and their content.

Generally, employment agreements are made up of different components. The key components of an employment agreement are:

• the agreement itself (whether verbal or written)
• statutory entitlements
• customs and practice
• implied terms.

The employment agreement often consists of more than one document. It could include a separate job description or the so-called ‘House Rules’. The House Rules specify the workplace culture and particular ways of behaving in the workplace and can also provide detailed information regarding aspects such as use of equipment, company cars and the corporate wardrobe.

The agreement has to be in keeping with the statutory entitlements of employees, which are currently prescribed partly in the ERA 2000 and partly in a number of other Acts relating to industry, workplace and work practices (see, for example, the discussion of occupational health and safety in chapter 5). Customs and practice relate to workplace practices that, over time, have become a norm and that both employers and employees take for granted. For example, some workplaces may close early for Christmas or the organisation may be closed for the whole of Anzac Day. While such norms are important in creating a positive workplace culture and in running the day-to-day affairs of an organisation, problems can arise because of a lack of clarity and because they do not provide clear guidelines in respect of accountability.

Implied terms are norms that have become accepted as minima through many years of legal precedent. They concern certain basic rights and obligations with which employers and employees will have to comply. These include employee obligations such as turning up for work, following the employer’s directions, and looking after the organisation’s property and other employees’ well-being. On the employer’s side, it includes obligations to provide a safe workplace, to deal honestly with employees and to pay them the agreed wages. Thus, the rights and obligations often relate to behaviour that most people would regard as a matter of common sense (for more detail see Anderson & Hughes, 2014).

What could an employee expect to find in an employment agreement? The content of such agreements varies according to the job, the organisational culture and existing contractual arrangements. While some employees have a verbal employment agreement, most employers and employees prefer a written agreement as this clarifies the rights and obligations of the two parties. A written employment agreement has been prescribed as the norm under the ERA 2000 (see Chapter 4). Presented below are a number of items that are often found in employment agreements. The absence of some of these items from an employment agreement may have important implications.

Employment agreements are governed by statutory entitlements, customs and practice, and implied terms. This means that there are certain entitlements which cannot be undercut by any employment agreement. The statutory entitlements are mentioned in the ERA 2000 (see Chapter 4). There are, for example, existing default personal grievance procedures that will come into play if no such procedures are specifically included in an agreement. Likewise, there are minimum leave entitlements and statutory minimum wages both for adult and youth workers. Finally, inherent in the implied terms is that the employment agreement can cover only legal arrangements. Thus, in respect of employment, civil and criminal law, the agreement must not include any unlawful stipulations.

This means that such unlawful conditions or conditions below statutory minimum conditions, even if agreed to in an agreement, cannot be upheld. In other words, even if an employer and an employee have agreed on a wage below the statutory minimum wage, it would nonetheless be possible for the employee to seek a back payment from the employer, equal to the difference between the agreed and the statutory minimum wage for the period of employment. Thus, having an employment agreement provides significant protection and this makes the distinction between an employee and a contractor/self-employed person very important.

Source: Rasmussen & Lamm, 2002, p. 54

Employment institutions and personal grievances

The establishment of specific Employment Institutions became a major feature of New Zealand employment relations with the introduction of the Conciliation and Arbitration Act 1894, and they are still a major feature under the ERA 2000. Unsurprisingly, the names, roles and specific functions of the Employment Institutions have changed considerably over time. The current Employment Institutions are the Mediation Service, the Employment Authority and the Employment Court and their roles and functions are discussed in Chapter 4. The personal grievance has been a crucial employee right since the Employment Contracts Act 1991 extended access to the personal grievance procedure to all employees. Since then, legislation has afforded employees the opportunity to decide themselves whether they would lodge a personal grievance claim, whereas previously, the claims procedure had been conducted through unions. This led, as was expected, to a rise in personal grievance claims (see Chapter 3). Since the mid-1990s, the Employment Institutions have had to deal with several thousand cases a year and most of these cases are personal grievance cases.

The personal grievance right has been controversial and it has often generated very critical employer evaluations (Walker & Hamilton, 2011). Some employer associations have pointed to some employees developing an ‘American litigation’ mind-set, especially when some employee representatives have an outcome-based fee structure whereby the employee only paid the representative if the case was won. The employee has, therefore, little financial risk in pursuing a personal grievance claim (Burton, 2004; 2010).

Another frequent employer complaint has been the emphasis on procedural fairness by the Employment Institutions (see below). Such employer advocacy has been criticised as exaggerating the lopsidedness and levels of payments associated with the personal grievance right, and instead personal grievance is seen as a useful constraint on the employer prerogative and promoting better conflict management (McAndrew, 2010). However, the 2008–2017 National-led Governments abolished the automatic personal grievance right of new employees – it was now up for negotiation (the so-called 90-day trial period) – which have influenced employment norms amongst young and low-paid employees (see Table 2 in Foster & Rasmussen, 2017, p. 102). While the post 2017 Labour-led Government has reversed several of the 2008–2017 changes, it is noticeable that it has kept the 90-day trial period for organisations with less than 20 staff.

Most of the personal grievance claims concerned unjustifiable dismissals. This probably suggests that a better understanding of the dismissal procedures by employees and employers alike was necessary. There are three types of dismissals (Anderson & Hughes, 2014, pp. 359-370):

• the standard, general type of dismissal
• summary dismissals
• constructive dismissals.

We will concentrate on the standard, general type of dismissal and only briefly describe the two other types. Summary dismissals occur when the employee is dismissed instantly and without any notice. This is a very drastic action that should only occur very rarely and only when the employee is guilty of serious misbehaviour. What constitutes ‘serious misbehaviour’ will alter over time but the term is normally associated with stealing, fighting, deliberately disobeying the employer’s requests, and with a disregard for other persons’ safety and health. Constructive dismissals occur in situations where the employee feels under pressure to resign. This can include situations in which a manager has ‘leaned’ heavily on an employee through constant criticism, allocating inconvenient rosters, or through publicly expressed dissatisfaction with the work performance. It can also include a situation in which the employee is given the choice of resigning or being dismissed.

A dismissal is only justifiable if it is fair and reasonable. This implies that there must be adequate justification (due cause) and a fair process . Adequate justification would include misconduct, dishonesty or lack of punctuality on the part of the employee. However, dismissals are often associated with so-called ‘performance problems’, where the performance of the employee has fallen short of the expectations or standards set by the employer. In the case of performance problems, the following elements are important: the expected standards must be clear and the employee must be aware of the standards; these standards may not have suddenly changed, and the employee must have received adequate training and supervision to meet the expected standards.

Under the Employment Contracts Act 1991, the idea of a fair process, also known as procedural fairness , received a lot of attention (Anderson & Hughes, 2014, pp. 344-359). Key elements of a fair process are a discussion of the issues at stake between employer and employee and issue clarity . These key elements are important as each party should understand the other’s position and also what changes and outcomes are sought. Procedural fairness includes giving the employee the opportunity to rectify the problem and making sure the employee understands that he/she could be dismissed if the problem is not solved. The employee should, in other words, be aware of exactly what the problem is and should know what to do in order to rectify it. The employee should also be given adequate time to rectify the problem and a clear warning must be issued that his/her employment could be terminated if the problem is not rectified.

If the warnings do not bring about the changes sought, then it may be necessary for an employer to consider terminating the employment relationship. In such situations, procedural fairness is important and Fryer and Oldfield (1994, p. 71) have recommended the following steps:

• ‘give a proper explanation to the worker of the reasons that dismissal is being considered, including details of alleged wrongdoing;
• give the worker the opportunity to put their side of the story – defenses, explanations, any mitigating factors;
• make a full investigation of the situation before coming to a final decision. This includes taking into account the worker’s explanation, interviewing other staff members where necessary, etc.’

Despite these relatively simple guidelines, many employers have complained about the complexity surrounding personal grievances and how decisions in the Employment Institutions can negatively influence employing and managing people. While these are controversial and contested positions, the changes in employment regulations have featured strongly in political debates (see Rasmussen, 2009, pp. 11-15).

A particular problem has been the crucial importance of legal precedent – that is, court decisions on key legal issues – in formulating precise guidelines for bargaining and workplace behaviours (Caisley, 2004). This can be a long-winded process and it can lead to shifting legal interpretations which can be difficult to understand for the average employer and employee. While the ERA 2000 has tried to limit the importance of legal precedent by having a prescriptive legal framework, there are continuously new challenges to the precise interpretation of legislative principles and their practical application (Greenwood, 2016).

Anderson, G. & Hughes, J. (2014). Employment Law in New Zealand . LexisNexis.

Bamber, G.J., Lansbury, R.D., Wailes, N. & Wright, C.F. (2016). International & Comparative Employment Relations . Sage.

Boxall, P. & Purcell, J. (2011). Strategy and Human Resource Management . Palgrave Macmillan.

Bratton, J., & Gold, J. (2017). Human resource management: theory and practice . Palgrave Macmillan.

Burton, B. (2004). The Employment Relations Act according to Business New Zealand. In E. Rasmussen (Ed.). Employment Relationships. New Zealand’s Employment Relations Act (pp. 134-144). Auckland University Press.

Burton, B. (2010). Employment relations 2000-2008: an employer view. In E. Rasmussen (Ed.). Employment Relationships: Workers, Unions and Employers in New Zealand (pp. 94-115). Auckland University Press.

Caisley, A. (2004). The law moves in mysterious ways. In E. Rasmussen (Ed). Employment Relationships. New Zealand’s Employment Relations Act (pp. 59-76). Auckland University Press.

Carr, S., Parker, J., Arrowsmith, J., Yao, C. & Harr, J. (2018). The Living Wage in New Zealand and its Implications for Human Resource Management and Employment Relations. In J. Parker & M. Baird, M (Eds.). Big Issues in Employment (pp. 95-108). CCH New Zealand.

Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD). (2017) Power dynamics in work and employment relationships: the capacity for employee influence (Research report Part 1 – Thematic literature review). https://www.cipd.co.uk/Images/power-dynamics-in-work-and-employment-relationships_2017-the-capacity-for-employee-influence_tcm18-33089.pdf

Ferraro, T., Pais, L. & Rebelo dos Santos, N. (2015). Decent work: An aim for all made by all. International Journal of Social Science, IV(3), 30-42.

Foster, B. & Rasmussen, E. (2017). The major parties: National’s and Labour’s employment relations policies. New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations , 42 (2), 95-109

Fryer, G. & Oldfield, Y. (1994). New Zealand Employment Relations . Longman Paul.

Greenwood, G. (2016). Transforming Employment Relationships? Making Sense of Conflict Management in the Workplace [Unpublished PhD thesis]. AUT University http://hdl.handle.net/10292/9944

Harbridge, R (Ed.). (1993). Employment Contracts: New Zealand Experiences . Victoria University Press.

Harris, P. & Twiname, L. (1998). First Knights: an investigation of the New Zealand Business Roundtable . Howling At The Moon Publishing.

Kelly, J. (2012). Rethinking industrial relations: Mobilisation, collectivism and long waves . Routledge.

Kelsey, J. (1997). The New Zealand Experiment: A world model for structural adjustment? Auckland University Press.

Lamare, R., Lamm, F., McDonnell, N. & White, H. (2014). Independent, dependent, and employee: Contractors and New Zealand’s Pike River Coal Mine disaster. Journal of Industrial Relations , 57(1), 72-93.

McAndrew, I. (2010). The employment institutions. In E. Rasmussen (Ed.). Employment Relationships: Workers, Unions and Employers in New Zealand (pp. 74-93). Auckland University Press.

McAndrew, I., Edgar, F., & Jerrard, M. (2018). Human Resource Management and Employment Relations Paradigms in Australia and New Zealand. In J. Parker & M. Baird (Eds.). Big Issues in Employment (pp. 1-19). CCH New Zealand.

Rasmussen, E. (2009). Employment Relations in New Zealand . Pearson.

Rasmussen, E. (2022). Employment Relations in New Zealand . ER Publishing.

Rasmussen, E., & Greenwood, G. (2014). Conflict resolution in New Zealand. In W. K. Roche, P. Teague, & A. J. S. Colvin (Eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Conflict Management in Organizations (pp. 449-474). Oxford University Press.

Rasmussen, E. & Lamm, F. (2002). An Introduction to Employment Relations in New Zealand . Pearson.

Ravenswood, K. & Kaine, S. (2015). The role of government in influencing labour conditions through the procurement of services: Some political challenges. Journal of Industrial Relations , 57(4), 544-562.

Simpkin, G. (2006). Putting Regulation Theory to Work in Industrial Relations. New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations , 31(2), 1-16.

Walker, B., & Hamilton, R. T. (2011). Employee–employer grievances: a review. International Journal of Management Reviews , 13(1), 40-58.

Introduction and overview of employment relations Copyright © 2022 by Erling Rasmussen; Felicity Lamm; and Julienne Molineaux is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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The changing face of employment relations over the last 50 years

Employee Relations

ISSN : 0142-5455

Article publication date: 5 October 2015

Darlington, R. (2015), "The changing face of employment relations over the last 50 years", Employee Relations , Vol. 37 No. 6. https://doi.org/10.1108/ER-08-2015-0160

Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Article Type: Guest editorial From: Employee Relations, Volume 37, Issue 6

In this special issue of Employee Relations an unrivalled line-up of authors provide a fascinating reflective historical commentary on the changes and continuities within employment relations (ER) in Britain over the last 50 years, as well as consider future challenges and prospects. The special issue emerges from the 50th anniversary conference of the Manchester Industrial Society which was held in November 2014 and attended by over 200 industrial relations academics, trade union officers, TUC officials, HR professionals from the Chartered Institute for Personal and Development (CIPD), officials from the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (Acas), labour lawyers from the Industrial Law Society, and postgraduate ER/HRM students. The conference provided an important testimony to the continuing theoretical and practical contemporary relevance of the field of ER, and in the process celebrated the Manchester Industrial Relations Society’s distinctive contribution since 1964. The event was sponsored and financially supported by the CIPD, Acas, TUC, British Universities Industrial Relations Association, Salford Business School, Fairness at Work Research Centre at Manchester Business School, and Manchester Metropolitan University Business School. Virtually all of the conference presentations were subsequently further developed and written up for this special issue of Employee Relations , alongside some other individual contributions, that collectively attempt to reflect on past achievements, changing landscapes and processes, emerging issues and problems and future trajectories about the world of ER. In sum, this is likely to be a seminal issue of the journal that will be an important teaching and research resource for many years to come.

The first two articles explore the theme of the changing patterns of work and ER since the mid-1960s. To begin with, Jill Rubery identifies the so-called "Four Fs of Employment Change": "Feminisation" of labour, especially part-time work and the attendant gender pay gap; "Flexibility" from standard to flexible and transient employment; "Fragmentation" of work across organisational boundaries and organisational types; and "Financialisation" involving increased market de-regulation and global neoliberalism shaping the conduct of ER. The article pinpoints the way these four trends, despite different origins and pace of development, have created a world in which employees increasingly face an insecure, less transparent and more ambiguous form of employment.

Paul Marginson then examines the remarkable decline of collectivism as the main way of regulating ER, with reference to collective representation and organisation, collective bargaining coverage and structure, the scope (agenda) of collective bargaining and joint consultation arrangements. He highlights three underlying processes: "marketization" (with a shift from an industrial/occupational frame to an enterprise frame in collective ER); the rise of "micro-corporatism" (with an increased focus on common interests of collective actors within an enterprise frame); and "the changing nature of voluntarism" (with attempts at a legally induced or legislatively prompted voluntarism leading to meagre outcomes, and "asymmetric" voluntarism with management decisions increasingly predominant in determining "fact" and trajectory of collective ER).

The next three articles provide different practitioners’ perspectives from the respective vantage points of the CIPD, Acas and the TUC. Mike Emmott (advisor to the CIPD) refocuses analysis away from the field of "industrial relations" to "employee relations", including issues related to managing human resources, conflict management, employee engagement, employee voice and the role of the CIPD in supporting good practice in people management. He probes the extent to which alternative dispute resolution could be integrated into strategic conflict management, and advocates the need to bring key "social partners" together to form a hub for advising government on workplace issues and for government-supported, sector-based and workplace-focused campaigns on productivity, performance and good work.

Gill Dix and Brendan Barber provide an overview of some of the most significant developments that have affected Acas’ role across a 40 year period, namely, the task of promoting good individual and collective relationships in the workplace, and offering effective third-party dispute resolution; in particular the authors focus on two areas that have dominated policy concerns – workplace disputes and the question of employment regulation.

Paul Nowak then provides an overview of the key trends within the trade union movement over the past 50 years, suggesting there have been three key phases between 1964 and 2014: the first phase, from 1964 to the late 1970s, was a period of growth and expansion; the second phase, from the early 1980s to the mid-1990s, was a period of "survival" with unions having to respond to the end of the post-war consensus, industrial change, the rise of de-regulation and Thatcherism; and the third phase, from the mid-1990s to the present day, was one of "resilience if not resurgence". It is suggested unions could learn three key lessons from the half century after 1964: organising is crucial; unions can only grow if they reach out to new groups of workers; and unions need to be confident enough not to be confined within what former TUC general secretary Walter Citrine described as the "traditional walls of trade union policy".

The following two articles shift the focus of attention towards, respectively state regulation of ER and the issue of equality and diversity. Miguel Martinez Lucio argues that increasingly progressive state interventions on a range of subjects over the last 40 years, such as equality, health and safety, and others, have coincided with a greater commercialisation of the state and greater fragmentation, with a growing set of tensions and breakdown in consensus over workers’ rights. He argues that with agencies of the state and other state bodies entrusted with the development of a more socially driven view of ER becoming increasingly undermined and weakened, the political context of ER has become more fractured and unable to sustain a coherent longer term view.

In examining the changing face of ER with reference to equality and diversity, Sian Moore and Stephanie Tailby look at what has happened to both the notion and the reality of equal pay over the past 50 years and the tension between voluntary and legal responses to discrimination as "vehicles for equality". In the process, they consider the potential for collective bargaining to be harnessed to equality at work, and in considering the shifting relationship between liberal and radical models of equality also probe the limited extent to which legal measures, such as the National Minimum Wage from 1999 and the Equality Act 2010, have provided solutions to closing pay gaps and wider social inequalities.

The collective expression of conflict within the employment relationship over the last 50 years, notably strike activity, is then examined in two different but complimentary articles. John Kelly concentrates attention on changing trends and patterns of collective action (notably the way the decline of union density, organisational capacity and bargaining coverage has shrunk the opportunity structures through which to put leverage on employers), but argues declining conflict at work does not entail a decline in conflict about work. He identifies varieties of collective action (coalition building between unions and civil society, political lobbying of key decision makers at different levels, online petitions and social media, occupations of public spaces and general strikes and demonstrations) and considers the links between strike and protest waves in Europe and the restructuring of class representation in the political system.

Dave Lyddon further explores four interrelated features that have dominated the past 50 years of strikes: their contours (there are now far fewer of them); their changing locus (from coalmining and manufacturing to the public services and privatised utilities); relationship between officials and unofficial strikes (the latter are no longer the dominant form); and the return of the labour injunction (whereas legislation and the courts tended not to interfere with strikes, the opposite is now the case). Although the number of strikes and days lost remain at historically low levels, it is argued the recent series of national public service stoppages have significantly increased the number of strikers (especially women) from its nadir in the 1990s and, notwithstanding anticipated government legislation further curtailing industrial action, there is likely to be a continuing durability, adaptability and inevitability of the strike weapon.

The final article by Roger Seifert on the British industrial relations tradition after Donovan provides a forthright and provocative Marxist critique of the perceived highly negative role leading IR academics of the 1960s (such as Hugh Clegg, Bill McCarthy, Allan Flanders, Alan Fox and George Bain) played in compromising a critical analysis of the antagonistic dynamic of the employment relationship, something which it is argued has been subsequently accentuated with the academic study of HRM in Business Schools.

In sum this special issue of Employee Relations provides a distinctive contribution to the analysis of the changing nature of work and ER in the UK over the last 50 years, and its potential future challenges and opportunities, as well as underlining the theoretical and practical contemporary relevance of the field of industrial relations broadly defined.

Professor Ralph Darlington , Salford Business School, University of Salford, Salford, UK

About the Guest Editor

Ralph Darlington is a Professor of Employment Relations at the University of Salford. His research is concerned with the dynamics of trade union organisation, activity and consciousness in Britain and internationally within both contemporary and historical settings. He is author of The Dynamics of Workplace Unionism (Mansell, 1994) and Radical Unionism (Haymarket, 2013); co-author of Glorious Summer: Class Struggle in Britain, 1972 , (Bookmarks, 2001); and editor of What’s the Point of Industrial Relations? In Defence of Critical Social Science (BUIRA, 2009). He is an Editorial Board Member of Work, Employment and Society , Executive Member of the British Universities Industrial Relations Association and Secretary of the Manchester Industrial Relations Society. Professor Ralph Darlington can be contacted at: mailto:[email protected]

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Chapter 13 Introductory Essay: 1945-1960

Written by: Patrick Allitt, Emory University

By the end of this section, you will:.

• Explain the context for societal change from 1945 to 1960
• Explain the extent to which the events of the period from 1945 to 1960 reshaped national identity

Introduction

World War II ended in 1945. The United States and the Soviet Union had cooperated to defeat Nazi Germany, but they mistrusted each other. Joseph Stalin, the Soviet dictator, believed the Americans had waited too long before launching the D-Day invasion of France in 1944, leaving his people to bear the full brunt of the German war machine. It was true that Soviet casualties were more than 20 million, whereas American casualties in all theaters of war were fewer than half a million.

On the other hand, Harry Truman, Franklin Roosevelt’s vice president, who had become president after Roosevelt’s death in April 1945, believed Stalin had betrayed a promise made to Roosevelt at the  Yalta summit  in February 1945. That promise was to permit all the nations of Europe to become independent and self-governing at the war’s end. Instead, Stalin installed Soviet  puppet governments  in Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Rumania, Hungary, and Bulgaria, the parts of Europe his armies had recaptured from the Nazis.

These tensions between the two countries set the stage for the Cold War that came to dominate foreign and domestic policy during the postwar era. The world’s two superpowers turned from allies into ideological and strategic enemies as they struggled to protect and spread their systems around the world, while at the same time developing arsenals of nuclear weapons that could destroy it. Domestically, the United States emerged from the war as the world’s unchallenged economic powerhouse and enjoyed great prosperity from pent-up consumer demand and industrial dominance. Americans generally supported preserving the New Deal welfare state and the postwar anti-communist crusade. While millions of white middle-class Americans moved to settle down in the suburbs, African Americans had fought a war against racism abroad and were prepared to challenge it at home.

The Truman Doctrine and the Cold War

Journalists nicknamed the deteriorating relationship between the two great powers a “ cold war ,” and the name stuck. In the short run, America possessed the great advantage of being the only possessor of nuclear weapons as a result of the Manhattan Project. It had used two of them against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end the war in the Far East, with destructive power so fearsome it deterred Soviet aggression. But after nearly four years of war, Truman was reluctant to risk a future conflict. Instead, with congressional support, he pledged to keep American forces in Europe to prevent any more Soviet advances. This was the “ Truman Doctrine ,” a dramatic contrast with the American decision after World War I to withdraw from European affairs. (See the  Harry S. Truman, “Truman Doctrine” Address, March 1947   Primary Source.)

President Harry Truman pictured here in his official presidential portrait pledged to counter Soviet geopolitical expansion with his “Truman Doctrine.”

The National Security Act, passed by Congress in 1947, reorganized the relationship between the military forces and the government. It created the National Security Council (NSC), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the office of Secretary of Defense. The Air Force, previously a branch of the U.S. Army, now became independent, a reflection of its new importance in an era of nuclear weapons. Eventually, NSC-68, a secret memorandum from 1950, was used to authorize large increases in American military strength and aid to its allies, aiming to ensure a high degree of readiness for war against the Soviet Union.

What made the Soviet Union tick? George Kennan, an American diplomat at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow who knew the Soviets as well as anyone in American government, wrote an influential article titled “The Sources of Soviet Conduct.” Originally sent from Moscow as a long telegram, it was later published in the journal  Foreign Affairs  under the byline “X” and impressed nearly all senior American policy makers in Washington, DC. The Soviets, said Kennan, believed capitalism and communism could not coexist and that they would be perpetually at war until one was destroyed. According to Kennan, the Soviets believed communism was destined to dominate the world. They were disciplined and patient, however, and understood “the logic of force.” Therefore, said Kennan, the United States must be equally patient, keeping watch everywhere to “contain” the threat.

Containment  became the guiding principle of U.S. anti-Soviet policy, under which the United States deployed military, economic, and cultural resources to halt Soviet expansion. In 1948, the United States gave more than $12 billion to Western Europe to relieve suffering and help rebuild and integrate the economies through the Marshall Plan. The Europeans would thus not turn to communism in their desperation and America would promote mutual prosperity through trade. The Berlin crisis of 1948–1949 was the policy’s first great test. (See the  George Kennan (“Mr. X”), “Sources of Soviet Conduct,” July 1947  Primary Source.)

Berlin, jointly occupied by the major powers, lay inside Soviet-dominated East Germany, but access roads led to it from the West. In June 1948, Soviet forces cut these roads, hoping the Americans would permit the whole of Berlin to fall into the Soviet sphere rather than risk war. Truman and his advisors, recognizing the symbolic importance of Berlin but reluctant to fire the first shot, responded by having supplies flown into West Berlin, using aircraft that had dropped bombs on Berlin just three years earlier. Grateful Berliners called them the “raisin bombers” in tribute to one of the foods they brought.

After 11 months, recognizing their plan had failed, the Soviets relented. West Berlin remained part of West Germany, making the first test of containment a success. On the other hand, the United States was powerless to prevent a complete Communist takeover in Czechoslovakia, whose government had shown some elements of independence from Moscow’s direction. (See  The Berlin Airlift  Narrative.)

Alarm about the Czech situation hastened the American decision to begin re-arming West Germany, where an imperfect and incomplete process of “de-Nazification” had taken place. The United States also supervised the creation in 1949 of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), an alliance of Western nations to forestall Soviet aggression in central Europe. The U.S. government also continued research on and development of new and more powerful nuclear weapons. Americans were dismayed to learn, in 1949, that the Soviets had successfully tested an atomic bomb of their own, greatly facilitated by information provided by Soviet spies. Europe and much of the world were divided between the world’s two superpowers and their allies.

U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson along with the foreign ministers of Canada and 10 European nations gathered to sign the North Atlantic Treaty on April 4 1949 founding NATO.

Postwar Uncertainty

The postwar years were politically volatile ones all over the world, due to widespread decolonization. Britain, though allied with the United States during World War II, had been weakened by the conflict and could no longer dominate its remote colonies. The British Empire was shrinking drastically, and this made the Truman Doctrine all the more necessary. In 1947, an economically desperate Britain reluctantly granted India and Pakistan the independence their citizens had sought for years. Britain’s African colonies gained independence in the 1950s and early 1960s. The United States and the Soviet Union each struggled to win over the former British colonies to their own ideological side of the Cold War. (See the  Who Was Responsible for Starting the Cold War?  Point-Counterpoint and  Winston Churchill, “Sinews of Peace,” March 1946  Primary Source.)

Israel came into existence on May 14, 1948, on land that had been a British-controlled  mandate  since the end of World War I. The Zionist movement, founded in the 1890s by Austro-Hungarian journalist Theodore Herzl, had encouraged European Jews to immigrate to Palestine. There, they would buy land, become farmers, and eventually create a Jewish state. Tens of thousands, indeed, had migrated there and prospered between 1900 and 1945. Widespread sympathy for the Jews, six million of whom had been exterminated in the Nazi Holocaust, prompted the new United Nations to authorize the partition of Palestine into two states, one Jewish and one Arab. From the very beginning, these two states were at war, with all the neighboring Arab states uniting to threaten Israel’s survival. President Truman supported Israel, however, and in the ensuing decades, most American politicians, and virtually all the American Jewish population, supported and strengthened it.

In 1949, a decades-long era of chaos, conquest, and revolution in China ended with the triumph of Mao Zedong, leader of a Communist army. Against him, America had backed Chiang Kai-Shek, the Chinese Nationalist leader, whose defeated forces fled to the offshore island of Taiwan. American anti-communist politicians in Washington, DC, pointed to the growing “red” (Communist) areas of the map as evidence that communism was winning the struggle for the world. Domestically, Truman and the Democrats endured charges that they had “lost” China to communism.

War in Korea

Korea, one of the many parts of Asia that Japan had conquered in the earlier twentieth century but then lost in 1945, was now partitioned into a pro-Communist North and an anti-Communist South. In June 1950, the Truman administration was taken by surprise when North Korea attacked the South, overpowering its army and forcing the survivors back into a small area of the country’s southeast, the Pusan perimeter. Truman and his advisors quickly concluded they should apply the containment principle to Asia and procured a resolution of support from the United Nations, which was unanimous because the Soviet representatives were not present in the Security Council during the vote. See the  Truman Intervenes in Korea  Decision Point.)

U.S. troops were sent to Korea shortly after Truman’s decision to apply containment to the region. Pictured is a U.S. gun crew near the Kum River in July 1950.

An American invasion force led by General Douglas MacArthur thus made a daring counterattack, landing at Inchon, near Seoul on the west coast of the Korean peninsula, on September 15, 1950. At once, this attack turned the tables in the war, forcing the North Koreans into retreat. Rather than simply restore the old boundary, however, MacArthur’s force advanced deep into North Korea, ultimately approaching the Chinese border. At this point, in October 1950, Mao Zedong sent tens of thousands of Chinese Communist soldiers into the conflict on the side of North Korea. They turned the tide of the war once again, forcing the American forces to fall back in disarray.

After a brutal winter of hard fighting in Korea, the front lines stabilized around the  38th parallel . MacArthur, already a hero of World War II in the Pacific, had burnished his reputation at Inchon. In April 1951, however, he crossed the line in civil-military relations that bars soldiers from dabbling in politics by publicly criticizing one of President Truman’s strategic decisions not to expand the war against the Chinese. MacArthur was so popular in America, he had come to think the rules no longer applied to him, but they did. Truman fired him with no hesitation, replacing him with the equally competent but less egotistical General Matthew Ridgway. The war dragged on in a stalemate. Only in 1953, after the inauguration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, was a truce declared between the two Koreas. It has held uneasily ever since. (See  The Korean War and The Battle of Chosin Reservoir  Narrative.)

Prosperity and the Baby Boom

The late 1940s and early 1950s were paradoxical. They were years of great geopolitical stress, danger, and upheaval, yet they were also a time of prosperity and opportunity for millions of ordinary American citizens. Far more babies were born each year than in the 1930s, resulting in the large “ baby boom ” generation. Millions of new houses were built to meet a need accumulated over the long years of the Great Depression and the war. Suburbs expanded around every city, creating far better and less-crowded living conditions than ever before. Levittown housing developments were just one example of the planned communities with mass-produced homes across the country that made homeownership within the reach of many, though mostly white families, thanks to cheap loans for returning veterans (See the  Levittown Videos, 1947–1957  Primary Source). Wages and living standards increased, and more American consumers found they could afford their own homes, cars, refrigerators, air conditioners, and even television sets—TV was then a new and exciting technology. The entire nation breathed a sigh of relief on discovering that peace did not bring a return of depression-era conditions and widespread unemployment. (See  The Sound of the Suburbs  Lesson.)

Television became a staple in U.S. households during the 1940s and 1950s.

Full employment during the war years had strengthened trade unions, but for patriotic reasons, nearly all industrial workers had cooperated with their employers. Now that the war was over, a rash of strikes for better pay and working conditions broke out. In 1945, Truman expanded presidential power by seizing coal mines, arguing it was in the national interest because coal supplied electricity. He then forced the United Mine Workers to end their strike the following year.

Although coal miners won their demands, the power of organized labor waned over the next few decades. Republican members of Congress, whose party had triumphed in the 1946 mid-term elections, passed the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947, aiming to curb the power of unions by banning the closed shop, allowing states to protect the right to work outside the union, setting regulations to limit labor strikes and excluding supporters of the Communist Party and other social radicals from their leadership. Truman vetoed the act, but Congress overrode the veto. In 1952, Truman attempted to again seize a key industry and forestall a strike among steelworkers. However, the Supreme Court decided in  Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer  (1952) that Truman lacked the constitutional authority to seize private property, and steelworkers won significant concessions.

Watch this BRI AP U.S. History Exam Study Guide about the Post-WWII Boom: Transition to a Consumer Economy to explore the post-World War II economic boom in the United States and its impacts on society.

Joseph McCarthy and the Red Scare

Fear of communism, not only abroad but at home, was one of the postwar era’s great obsessions. Ever since the Russian Revolution of 1917, a small and dedicated American Communist Party had aimed to overthrow capitalism and create a Communist America. Briefly popular during the crisis of the Great Depression and again when Stalin was an American ally in World War II, the party shrank during the early Cold War years. Rising politicians like the young California congressman Richard Nixon nevertheless discovered that anti-Communism was a useful issue for gaining visibility. Nixon helped win publicity for the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC), whose hearings urged former communists to expose their old comrades in the name of national security, especially in government and Hollywood. In 1947, President Truman issued Executive Order No. 9835, establishing loyalty boards investigating the communist sympathies of 2.5 million federal employees. (See  The Postwar Red Scare  and the  Cold War Spy Cases  Narratives.)

The most unscrupulous anti-communist was Senator Joseph R. McCarthy (R-WI), who used fear of communism as a powerful political issue during the early Cold War. He made reckless allegations that the government was riddled with communists and their sympathizers, even including Secretary of State George Marshall. Intimidating all critics by accusing them of being part of a great communist conspiracy, McCarthy finally overplayed his hand in publicly televised hearings by accusing the U.S. Army of knowingly harboring communists among its senior officers. The Senate censured him in December 1954, after which his influence evaporated, but for four years, he had been one of the most important figures in American political life. Although he was correct that the Soviets had spies in the U.S. government, McCarthy created a climate of fear and ruined the lives of innocent people for his own political gain during what became known as the “Second Red Scare.” (See the  McCarthyism DBQ  Lesson.)

Senator Joseph McCarthy (left) is pictured with his lawyer Roy Cohn during the 1950s McCarthy-Army clash.

Be sure to check out this  BRI Homework Help video about The Rise and Fall of Joseph McCarthy  to learn more about Joseph McCarthy and his battle against communists in the U.S. government.

Several highly publicized spy cases commanded national attention. Klaus Fuchs and other scientists with detailed knowledge of the Manhattan Project were caught passing nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union. In 1950, Alger Hiss was prosecuted for perjury before Congress and accused of sharing State Department documents with the Soviets. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were tried for espionage in 1951 and executed two years later. Julius was convicted of running a spy ring associated with selling atomic secrets to the Russians, though the case against Ethel’s direct involvement was thinner.

From Truman to Eisenhower

After the 1946 midterm election, in which Republicans won a majority in the House and the Senate, the Democratic President Truman struggled to advance his domestic program, called the Fair Deal in an echo of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. For instance, Truman was the first American president to propose a system of universal health care, but the Republican Congress voted it down because they opposed the cost and regulations associated with the government program and called it “socialized medicine.” Truman did succeed in other areas. He was able to encourage Congress to pass the Employment Act of 1946, committing the government to ensuring full employment. By executive order, he desegregated the American armed forces and commissioned a report on African American civil rights. He thus played an important role in helping advance the early growth of the civil rights movement.

Truman seemed certain to lose his re-election bid in 1948. The Republicans had an attractive candidate in Thomas Dewey, and Truman’s own Democratic Party was splintering three ways. Former Vice President Henry Wallace led a Progressive breakaway, advocating a less confrontational approach to the Cold War. Strom Thurmond, a South Carolina senator, led the southern “Dixiecrat” breakaway by opposing any breach in racial segregation. The  Chicago Daily Tribune  was so sure Dewey would win that it prematurely printed its front page with the headline “Dewey Defeats Truman.” One of the most famous photographs in the history of American journalism shows Truman, who had upset the pollsters by winning, holding a copy of this newspaper aloft and grinning broadly.

President Truman is pictured here holding the Chicago Daily Tribune with its inaccurate 1948 headline.

Four years later, exhausted by Korea and the fierce stresses of the early Cold War, Truman declined to run for another term. Both parties hoped to attract the popular Supreme Allied commander, Dwight D. Eisenhower, to be their candidate. He accepted the Republicans’ invitation, defeated Adlai Stevenson in November 1952, and won against the same rival again in 1956.

Rather than roll back the New Deal, which had greatly increased the size and reach of the federal government since 1933, Eisenhower accepted most of it as a permanent part of the system, in line with his philosophy of “Modern Republicanism.” He worked with Congress to balance the budget but signed bills for the expansion of Social Security and unemployment benefits, a national highway system, federal aid to education, and the creation of National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). In foreign policy, he recognized that for the foreseeable future, the Cold War was here to stay and that each side’s possession of nuclear weapons deterred an attack by the other. The two sides’ nuclear arsenals escalated during the 1950s, soon reaching a condition known as “ mutually assured destruction ,” which carried the ominous acronym MAD and would supposedly prevent a nuclear war.

At the same time, Eisenhower and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles supported the “New Look” foreign policy, which increased reliance on nuclear weapons rather than the more flexible but costly buildup of conventional armed forces. Despite the Cold War consensus about containment, Eisenhower did not send troops when the Vietnamese defeated the French in Vietnam; when mainland China bombed the Taiwanese islands of Quemoy and Matsu; when the British, French, and Egypt fought over the Suez Canal in 1956; or when the Soviets cracked down on Hungary. Instead, Eisenhower assumed financial responsibility for the French war effort in Vietnam and sent hundreds of military advisers there over the next several years. (See the  Dwight D. Eisenhower, Farewell Address, January 1961  Primary Source.)

Birth of the Civil Rights Movement

Encouraged by early signs of a change in national racial policy and by the Supreme Court’s decision in  Brown v. Board of Education  (1954) , African American organizations intensified their efforts to challenge southern segregation. Martin Luther King Jr., then a spellbinding young preacher in Montgomery, Alabama, led a Montgomery bus boycott that began in December 1955. Inspired by the refusal of Rosa Parks to give up her seat on a city bus, African Americans refused to ride Montgomery’s buses unless the company abandoned its policy of forcing them to ride at the back and to give up their seats to whites when the bus was crowded. After a year, the boycott succeeded. King went on to create the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), which practiced nonviolent resistance as a tactic, attracting press attention, embarrassing the agents of segregation, and promoting racial integration. (See the  Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr., and the Montgomery Bus Boycott  Narrative and the  Rosa Parks’s Account of the Montgomery Bus Boycott (Radio Interview), April 1956  Primary Source.)

In 1957, Congress passed the first federal protection of civil rights since Reconstruction and empowered the federal government to protect black voting rights. However, the bill was watered down and did not lead to significant change. In August, black students tried to attend high school in Little Rock, Arkansas, but were blocked by National Guard troops. Over the next few weeks, angry crowds assembled and threatened these students. President Eisenhower decided to send in federal troops to protect the nine black students. In the postwar era, African Americans won some victories in the fight for equality, but many southern whites began a campaign of massive resistance to that goal.

Check out this BRI Homework Help video about Brown v. Board of Education to learn more about the details of the case.

Thus, the pace of school desegregation across the south remained very slow. White southerners in Congress promised massive resistance to the policy. When it came to the point, however, only one county, Prince Edward County, Virginia, actually closed down its public schools rather than permit them to be desegregated. Other districts, gradually and reluctantly, eventually undertook integration, but widespread discrimination persisted, especially in the South.

Mexican Americans, like African Americans, suffered from racial discrimination. Under the  bracero  program, inaugurated during the 1940s, Mexicans were permitted to enter the United States temporarily to work, mainly as farm laborers in the western states, but they too were treated by whites as second-class citizens. They were guest workers, and the program was not intended to put them on a path to U.S. citizenship. (See  The Little Rock Nine  Narrative.)

Pictured are Mexican workers waiting to gain legal employment and enter the United States as part of the “ bracero ” program begun in the 1940s.

The Space Race

The desegregation of schools was only one aspect of public concern about education in the 1950s. The Soviet Union launched an artificial orbiting satellite, “Sputnik,” in 1957 and ignited the “ Space Race .” Most Americans were horrified, understanding that a rocket able to carry a satellite into space could also carry a warhead to the United States. Congress reacted by passing the National Defense Education Act in August 1958, devoting $1 billion of federal funds to education in science, engineering, and technology in the hope of improving the nation’s scientific talent pool.

NASA had been created earlier that same year to coordinate programs related to rocketry and space travel. NASA managed to catch up with the Soviet space program in the ensuing years and later triumphed by placing the first person on the moon in 1969. Better space rockets meant better military missiles. NASA programs also stimulated useful technological discoveries in materials, navigation, and computers. (See the  Sputnik and NASA  Narrative and the  Was Federal Spending on the Space Race Justified?  Point-Counterpoint.)

Another major initiative, also defense related, of the Eisenhower years was the decision to build the interstate highway system. As a young officer just after World War I, Eisenhower had been part of an Army truck convoy that attempted to cross the United States. Terrible roads meant that the convoy took 62 days, with many breakdowns and 21 injuries to the soldiers, an experience Eisenhower never forgot. He had also been impressed by the high quality of Germany’s autobahns near the war’s end. A comprehensive national system across the United States would permit military convoys to move quickly and efficiently. Commerce, the trucking industry, and tourism would benefit too, a belief borne out over the next 35 years while the system was built; it was declared finished in 1992. See  The National Highway Act  Narrative and the  Nam Paik,  Electronic Superhighway , 1995  Primary Source.)

New Roles for Women

American women, especially in the large and growing middle class, were in a paradoxical situation in the 1950s. In one sense, they were the most materially privileged generation of women in world history, wealthier than any predecessors. More had gained college education than ever before, and millions were marrying young, raising their children with advice from Dr. Spock’s best-selling  Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care  (1946), and enjoying labor-saving domestic devices and modern conveniences like washing machines, toasters, and electric ovens. Affluence meant many middle-class women were driving cars of their own. This  1950s advertisement for Ford automobiles  persuaded women to become a “two Ford family.” At the same time, however, some suffered various forms of depression and anxiety, seeking counseling, often medicating themselves, and feeling a lack of purpose in their lives.

This situation was noticed by Betty Friedan, a popular journalist in the 1950s whose book  The Feminine Mystique , published in 1963, helped ignite the new feminist movement. Its principal claim was that in America in the 1950s, women lacked fulfilling careers of their own, and material abundance was no substitute. (See the  Dr. Benjamin Spock and the Baby Boom  Narrative.) A feminist movement emerged in the 1960s and 1970s seeking greater equality. In the postwar period, however, not all women shared the same experiences. Millions of working-class and poor women of all races continued to work in factories, retail, domestic, or offices as they had before and during the war. Whether married or single, these women generally did not share in the postwar affluence enjoyed by middle-class, mostly white, women who were in the vanguard of the feminist movement for equal rights for women.

By 1960, the United States was, without question, in a superior position to its great rival the Soviet Union—richer, stronger, healthier, better fed, much freer, and much more powerful. Nevertheless Eisenhower, in his farewell address, warned against the dangers of an overdeveloped “military-industrial complex,” in which American traditions of democracy, decentralization, and civilian control would be swallowed up by the demands of the defense industry and a large, governmental national security apparatus. He had no easy remedies to offer and remained acutely aware that the Cold War continued to threaten the future of the world.

Timeline of events in the postwar period from 1945 to 1960.

Additional Chapter Resources

• Eleanor Roosevelt and the United Nations Narrative
• The G.I. Bill Narrative
• Jackie Robinson Narrative
• The Murder of Emmett Till Narrative
• The Nixon-Khrushchev Kitchen Debate Narrative
• William F. Buckley Jr. and the Conservative Movement Narrative
• Truman Fires General Douglas MacArthur Decision Point
• Eisenhower and the Suez Canal Crisis Point-Counterpoint
• Richard Nixon “Checkers” Speech September 1952 Primary Source
• Critics of Postwar Culture: Jack Kerouac On the Road (Excerpts) 1957 Primary Source
• Kennedy vs. Nixon: TV and Politics Lesson

Review Questions

1. The major deterrent to Soviet aggression in Europe immediately after World War II was

• that the Soviets lost 20 million people during the war
• the Truman Doctrine
• the United States’ possession of atomic power
• the presence of U.S. troops in western Europe after World War II was over

2. Why did the United States maintain large armed forces in Europe after World War II?

• To stop renewed German aggression
• To halt Soviet aggression despite the wartime alliance
• To help the British relinquish their empire
• To maintain high levels of employment at home

3. The memorandum NSC-68 authorized

• the formation of the CIA
• the creation of the Department of Defense
• increases in the size of U.S. military forces
• the formation of an independent air force

4. The United States’ first successful application of its policy of containment occurred in

• Prague Czechoslovakia
• Moscow U.S.S.R.
• Berlin Germany
• Bombay India

5. During the late 1940s the Truman Administration supported all the following countries except

• Republic of Korea
• People’s Republic of China

6. When North Korea invaded South Korea the Truman Administration resolved to apply which strategy?

• The Truman Doctrine
• Containment
• A plan similar to the Berlin Airlift
• The bracero program

7. Events in which European country led the United States to allow the re-arming of West Germany?

• East Germany
• Czechoslovakia

8. The Taft-Hartley Act was most likely passed as a result of

• fear of labor involvement in radical politics and activities
• concern that strong labor unions could rekindle a depression
• fear that labor would restrict the freedom of workers
• desire to make the labor strike illegal

9. Why was it reasonable to expect Truman to lose the presidential election of 1948?

• McCarthyism was creating widespread dislike of the Democratic Party.
• Truman had been unable to win the Korean War.
• The Democratic Party split into three rival branches including one dedicated to racial segregation.
• The Democrats had controlled Congress since 1933.

10. Why were many middle-class women dissatisfied with their lives in the 1950s?

• They were excluded from most career opportunities.
• The cost of living was too high.
• Fear of losing their traditional roles caused them constant anxiety.
• They opposed the early civil rights movement.

11. All the following were Cold War based initiatives by the Eisenhower Administration except

• the creation of NASA
• the National Defense Highway Act
• the National Defense Education Act
• the Taft-Hartley Act

12. Anti-communist crusader Senator Joseph McCarthy overplayed his advantage in the Red Scare when he

• claimed members of the president’s Cabinet were known communists
• charged Martin Luther King Jr. with being a communist
• asserted the U.S. Army knowingly protected known communists in its leadership
• hinted that President Eisenhower could be a communist

13. As a presidential candidate Dwight Eisenhower recognized the significance of all the following except

• the success of some New Deal programs
• the Cold War’s impact on U.S. foreign policy
• racial integration
• mutually assured destruction (MAD)

14. Which of the following statements most accurately describes the United States’ foreign policy during 1945-1960?

• The United States distanced itself from the global free-market economy.
• The United States based its foreign policy on unilateral decision-making.
• The Cold War was based on military policy only.
• The United States formed military alliances in reaction to the Soviet Union’s aggression.

15. Betty Friedan gained prominence by

• supporting women’s traditional role at home
• promoting the child-rearing ideas of Dr. Benjamin Spock
• researching and writing about the unfulfilling domestic role of educated women
• encouraging more women to attend college

16. Before leaving the office of the presidency Dwight D. Eisenhower warned the nation of the danger of

• falling behind in the space race
• having fewer nuclear weapons than the Soviet Union
• allowing the growth of the military-industrial complex
• overlooking communists within the federal government

Free Response Questions

• Explain President Harry Truman’s reaction to the Taft-Hartley Act.
• Describe President Truman’s role in advancing civil rights.
• Describe Dwight D. Eisenhower’s reaction to the New Deal programs still in existence when he was elected president.
• Explain the main reason for the United States’ military participation in Korea.

AP Practice Questions

Political cartoon by Clifford Berryman regarding civil rights and the 1948 election.

1. The main topic of public debate at the time this political cartoon was published was the

• deployment of U.S. troops in Korea
• dropping of the atomic bomb on Japan
• integration of the U.S. military

2. Which of the following groups would most likely support the sentiments expressed in the political cartoon?

• Progressives who argued for prohibition
• William Lloyd Garrison and like-minded abolitionists
• Antebellum reformers in favor of free public education
• Members of the America First Committee

“It would be an unspeakable tragedy if these countries which have struggled so long against overwhelming odds should lose that victory for which they sacrificed so much. Collapse of free institutions and loss of independence would be disastrous not only for them but for the world. Discouragement and possibly failure would quickly be the lot of neighboring peoples striving to maintain their freedom and independence. Should we fail to aid Greece and Turkey in this fateful hour the effect will be far reaching to the West as well as to the East. We must take immediate and resolute action. I therefore ask the Congress to provide authority for assistance to Greece and Turkey in the amount of $400 0 000 for the period ending June 30 1948.”

President Harry S. Truman The Truman Doctrine Speech March 12 1947

3. President Truman’s speech was most likely intended to increase the public’s awareness of

• rising tensions over oil reserves in the Middle East
• the Cold War and the struggle against Communism in Europe
• the United States’ need for access to the Black Sea
• the need to rebuild Europe after World War II

4. The immediate outcome of the event described in the excerpt was that

• the United States unilaterally rebuilt Europe
• worldwide freedom of the seas was guaranteed for all nations
• the United States’ foreign policy of containment was successfully implemented
• Europe was not as vital to U.S. interests as initially believed

5. Based on the ideas in the excerpt which of the following observations of U.S. foreign policy in the post World War II years is true?

• The United States was making a major shift in foreign policy from its stance after World War I.
• More people opposed the idea of U.S. involvement in world affairs.
• A majority believed that U.S. foreign policy was being dictated by the United Nations.
• The United States needed to reassert the “Good Neighbor Policy” but with a focus on Europe.

“Women especially educated women such as you have a unique opportunity to influence us man and boy and to play a direct part in the unfolding drama of our free society. But I am told that nowadays the young wife or mother is short of time for the subtle arts that things are not what they used to be; that once immersed in the very pressing and particular problems of domesticity many women feel frustrated and far apart from the great issues and stirring debates for which their education has given them understanding and relish. . . . There is often a sense of contraction of closing horizons and lost opportunities. They had hoped to play their part in the crisis of the age. . . . The point is that . . . women “never had it so good” as you do. And in spite of the difficulties of domesticity you have a way to participate actively in the crisis in addition to keeping yourself and those about you straight on the difference between means and ends mind and spirit reason and emotion . . . In modern America the home is not the boundary of a woman’s life. . . . But even more important is the fact surely that what you have learned and can learn will fit you for the primary task of making homes and whole human beings in whom the rational values of freedom tolerance charity and free inquiry can take root.”

Adlai Stevenson “A Purpose for Modern Women” from his Commencement Address at Smith College 1955

6. Which of the following best mirrors the sentiments expressed by Adlai Stevenson in the provided excerpt?

• Women should be prepared to return to a more traditional role in society.
• The ideals espoused by Republican Motherhood should be upheld.
• The United States would not have won World War II if women had not worked in factories.
• Women had the opportunity to influence the next generation of citizens.

7. The reference that “many women feel frustrated and far apart from the great issues and stirring debates for which their education has given them understanding and relish” is a reference to the ideas espoused by

• Martin Luther King Jr.
• Betty Friedan
• Dr. Benjamin Spock

Primary Sources

Eisenhower Dwight D. “Eisenhower’s Farewell Address to the Nation.” http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/ike.htm

Eisenhower Dwight D. “Interstate Highway System.” Eisenhower proposes the interstate highway system to Congress. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/special-message-the-congress-regarding-national-highway-program

“‘Enemies from Within’: Senator Joseph R. McCarthy’s Accusations of Disloyalty.” McCarthy’s speech in Wheeling West Virginia. http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6456

Friedan Betty. The Feminine Mystique . New York: W. W. Norton 1963.

Hamilton Shane and Sarah Phillips. Kitchen Debate and Cold War Consumer Politics: A Brief History with Documents . Boston: Bedford Books 2014.

Kennan George F. American Diplomacy . New York: Signet/Penguin Publishing 1952.

King Martin Luther Jr. “(1955) Martin Luther King Jr. ‘The Montgomery Bus Boycott.'” http://www.blackpast.org/1955-martin-luther-king-jr-montgomery-bus-boycott

King Martin Luther Jr. Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story . New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers 1958.

MacLean Nancy. American Women’s Movement 1945-2000: A Brief History with Documents . Boston: Bedford Books 2009.

Marshall George C. “The ‘Marshall Plan’ speech at Harvard University 5 June 1947.” http://www.oecd.org/general/themarshallplanspeechatharvarduniversity5june1947.htm

Martin Waldo E. Jr. Brown v. Board of Education: A Brief History with Documents . Boston: Bedford Books 1998.

Schrecker Ellen W. The Age of McCarthyism: A Brief History with Documents . Boston: Bedford Books 2016.

Story Ronald and Bruce Laurie. Rise of Conservatism in America 1945-2000: A Brief History with Documents. Boston: Bedford Books 2008.

Truman Harry. “A Report to the National Security Council – NSC 68 April 12 1950.” https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/library/research-files/report-national-security-council-nsc-68

Truman Harry. “The Fateful Hour (1947)” speech. http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/harrystrumantrumandoctrine.html

Suggested Resources

Ambrose Stephen and Douglas Brinkley. Rise to Globalism: American Foreign Policy since 1938. Ninth ed. New York: Penguin 2010.

Branch Taylor. Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-63 . New York: Simon and Schuster 1988.

Brands H.W. American Dreams: The United States Since 1945 . New York: Penguin 2010.

Brands H.W. The General vs. the President: MacArthur and Truman at the Brink of Nuclear War . New York: Anchor 2016.

Cadbury Deborah. Space Race: The Epic Battle Between American and the Soviet Union for Dominion of Space. New York: Harper 2007.

Cohen Lizabeth A. A Consumers’ Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America . New York: Vintage 2003.

Coontz Stephanie. The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap . New York: Basic Books 2016.

Dallek Robert. Harry S. Truman . New York: Times Books 2008.

Diggins John Patrick. The Proud Decades: America in War and Peace 1941-1960 . New York: W. W. Norton 1989.

Fried Richard. Nightmare in Red: The McCarthy Era in Perspective . Oxford: Oxford University Press 1991.

Gaddis John Lewis. The Cold War: A New History . New York: Penguin 2005.

Halberstam David. The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War. New York: Hyperion 2007.

Hitchcock William I. The Age of Eisenhower: America and the World in the 1950s. New York: Simon and Schuster 2018.

Johnson Paul. Eisenhower: A Life. New York: Penguin 2015.

Lewis Tom. Divided Highways: Building the Interstate Highways Transforming American Life. Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press 2013.

May Elaine Tyler. Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era . New York: Basic 2008.

McCullough David. Truman. New York: Simon and Schuster 1993.

Patterson James T. Grand Expectations: The United States 1945-1974. Oxford: Oxford University Press 1996.

Whitfield Stephen J. The Culture of the Cold War. Baltimore MD: Johns Hopkins University Press 1996.

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Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness

In our resource history is presented through a series of narratives, primary sources, and point-counterpoint debates that invites students to participate in the ongoing conversation about the American experiment.

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2 Moscow, Third Rome, and the Uses of Ressentiment: An Essay in Myth Criticism

• Published: November 2018
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Historical scrutiny of the myth of Moscow, Third Rome, exposes its being an ideological mainstay of Muscovite imperial autocratic pretentions since the fifteenth century. As Third Rome, Moscow alone inherits the universal authority of imperial Byzantium (Second Rome) over all Christians. In particular, it asserts the rule of autocracy over rule of law. The myth persists stubbornly in the popular Russian mind. There, it seems impervious to historical scrutiny. But, while the myth has withstood standard rational historical critiques, I conclude that it remains vulnerable to being replaced by an anti-autocratic counter-myth that asserts Byzantium’s role in the rise of rule of law.

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Emily Wang Fujiyama, Associated Press Emily Wang Fujiyama, Associated Press

Huizhong Wu, Associated Press Huizhong Wu, Associated Press

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• Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/china-and-russia-stress-partnership-as-moscow-presses-offensive-in-ukraine

China and Russia stress partnership as Moscow presses offensive in Ukraine

BEIJING (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin thanked Chinese leader Xi Jinping Thursday for China’s proposals on ending the war in Ukraine, which have been rejected by Ukraine and its Western supporters as largely following the Kremlin’s line.

At their summit, Putin and Xi reaffirmed a “no-limits” partnership that has grown deeper as both countries face deepening tensions with the West, and criticized U.S. military alliances in Asia and the Pacific region.

Putin’s two-day state visit to one of his strongest allies comes as his country’s forces are pressing an offensive in northeastern Ukraine’s Kharkiv region in the most significant border incursion since the full-scale invasion began on Feb. 24, 2022.

WATCH: Zelenskyy pleads for more support amid one of Russia’s largest offensives of the war

China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed Moscow’s contentions that Russia was provoked into attacking Ukraine by the West, and continues to supply Russia with key components that Moscow needs for its productions of weapons.

A joint statement after Putin and Xi met said that both sides believe that for “a sustainable settlement of the Ukrainian crisis, it is necessary to eliminate its root causes.”

Russia has said that the war was sparked not only by the threat posed to Russia by Ukraine and its backers but as necessary to wipe out alleged Nazism in Ukraine.

The Kremlin has repeatedly sought to link Ukraine’s leaders to Nazism, even though the country has a democratically elected Jewish president who lost relatives in the Holocaust, and despite the aim of many Ukrainians to strengthen the country’s democracy, reduce corruption and move closer to the West.

It wasn’t clear if the joint statement’s wording meant China was explicitly endorsing the Russian allegation of Nazi influence in Ukraine.

But the statement also noted that “The two sides pointed out that it is necessary to carry out education on the correct historical perspective, protect the world’s anti-fascist memorial facilities, and protect them from desecration or destruction, and severely condemn the glorification of or even attempts to revive Nazism and militarism.” That echoes Russia’s persistent contention that Western countries downplay the Red Army’s role in defeating Nazi Germany.

China proposed a broadly worded peace plan in 2023, calling for a cease-fire and for direct talks between Moscow and Kyiv. But the plan was rejected by both Ukraine and the West for failing to call for Russia to leave occupied parts of Ukraine.

READ MORE: Blinken says U.S. arms are helping Ukraine as nation faces a new Russian offensive

The largely symbolic visit stressed partnership between two countries who both face challenges in their relationship with the U.S. and Europe.

“Both sides want to show that despite what is happening globally, despite the pressure that both sides are facing from the U.S., both sides are not about to turn their backs on each other anytime soon,” said Hoo Tiang Boon, a professor who researches Chinese foreign policy at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University.

While both leaders said they were seeking an end to the war in Ukraine, they offered no new proposals in their public remarks Thursday afternoon.

“China hopes for the early return of Europe to peace and stability and will continue to play a constructive role toward this,” Xi said, speaking alongside Putin.

His words were an echo of what China said last year when it first offered a broad plan for peace outlining general principles for ending the war in Ukraine.

Putin said he will inform the Chinese leader in detail about “the situation in Ukraine,” and said “we appreciate the initiative of our Chinese colleagues and friends to regulate the situation.” He added that the two planned to engage in further foreign policy discussions at an informal meeting later Thursday.

After Russia’s newest offensive in Ukraine last week, the war has entered a critical stage, as Ukraine’s depleted military waits for new supplies of anti-aircraft missiles and artillery shells from the United States after months of delay.

The joint statement from China and Russia also criticized U.S. foreign policy at length, hitting out at U.S.-formed alliances, which the statement called a “Cold War mentality.”

“Both sides expressed serious concern about the consequences caused to the strategic stability of the Asia-Pacific region by AUKUS,” according to the statement, referring to the acronym for Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States.

China and Russia also accused the U.S. of deploying land-based intermediate range missile systems in the Asia-Pacific under the pretext of joint exercises with allies. They said that the U.S. actions in Asia were “changing the balance of power”and “endangering the security of all countries in the region.”

Thursday’s meeting was yet another affirmation of the friendly “no limits” relationship they signed in 2022, just before Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Since then, Russia has become increasingly economically dependent on China as Western sanctions cut its access to much of the international trading system. China’s increased trade with Russia, totaling $240 billion last year, has helped the country mitigate some of the worst blowback from sanctions.

WATCH: Treasury Secretary Yellen on why Biden is targeting Chinese manufacturing with new tariffs

Moscow has diverted the bulk of its energy exports to China and relied on Chinese companies for importing high-tech components for Russian military industries to circumvent Western sanctions.

“I and President Putin agree, we should actively look for convergence points of the interests of both countries, to develop each’s advantages, and deepen integration of interests, realizing each others’ achievements,” Xi said.

In their meeting, Xi congratulated Putin on his election to a fifth term in office and celebrated the 75th anniversary of diplomatic relations forged between the former Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China, which was established following a civil war in 1949. Putin faced no credible opposition in the presidential race, and, like Xi, hasn’t laid out any plans for any potential successors.

On the eve of the visit, Putin said in an interview with Chinese media that the Kremlin is prepared to negotiate over the conflict in Ukraine.

“We are open to a dialogue on Ukraine, but such negotiations must take into account the interests of all countries involved in the conflict, including ours,” Putin was quoted as saying by the official Xinhua News Agency.

Putin said a Chinese proposal made in 2023, which Ukraine and the West rejected, could “lay the groundwork for a political and diplomatic process that would take into account Russia’s security concerns and contribute to achieving a long-term and sustainable peace.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said any negotiations must include a restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity, the withdrawal of Russian troops, the release of all prisoners, a tribunal for those responsible for the aggression and security guarantees for Ukraine.

Putin has blamed the West for the failure of negotiations in the opening weeks of the war, and praised China’s peace plan.

Russia-China military ties have also strengthened during the war in Ukraine. They have held a series of joint war games in recent years, including naval drills and patrols by long-range bombers over the Sea of Japan and the East China Sea. Russian and Chinese ground forces also have deployed to the other country’s territory for joint drills.

China remains a major market for Russian military, while also massively expanding its domestic defensive industries, including building aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines.

Putin has previously said that Russia has been sharing highly sensitive military technologies with China that helped significantly bolster its defense capability. In October 2019, he mentioned that Russia was helping China to develop an early warning system to spot ballistic missile launches — a system involving ground-based radar and satellites that only Russia and the U.S. possessed.

Huizhong Wu reported from Bangkok. Yu Bing and Wanqing Chen in Beijing, Christopher Bodeen in Taipei and Jim Heintz in Tallinn, Estonia contributed to this report.

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Putin Is Selling Victory, and Many Russians Are Buying It

Vladimir Putin’s message to his country appears to be taking hold: that Russia is fighting against the whole Western world — and winning.

Military cadets at an exhibition of equipment captured from NATO countries in front of the Victory Museum in Moscow. Credit...

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By Valerie Hopkins

Photographs by Nanna Heitmann

Reporting from Moscow

• May 15, 2024

The word “victory” is everywhere in Moscow these days.

It is being projected from gargantuan LED screens alongside major intersections and highways and written on red flags whipping in the wind. It’s prominent at an exhibit of Western weapons destroyed on Ukrainian battlefields and lugged back to Moscow as war trophies on display in — where else? — Victory Park.

Victory is precisely the message that President Vladimir V. Putin, 71, has sought to project as he has been feted with pomp and pageantry after another electoral success, while his army sweeps through Ukrainian villages in a stunning new offensive in the northeast.

“Together, we will be victorious!” Mr. Putin said at his inauguration last week after securing a fifth term as president. Two days later, the country celebrated Victory Day, Russia’s most important public holiday, which commemorates the Soviet contribution to the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II.

During the first year of the invasion, many Russians were shocked and ashamed by the war; hundreds of thousands left the country. During the second year, they were concerned about a potential second wave of mobilization.

But with the war now in its third year, many Russians seem to have learned to accept it, interviews over the last week and recent polling show. And “victory” is an easy sell in Mr. Putin’s Russia.

Western sanctions have inflicted few economic hardships. The military news from Ukraine is increasingly positive. Yes, soldiers are still returning in coffins, but mostly to families in the hinterlands , not among the Moscow elite. And for many, the deaths only reinforce the idea, pushed by state news media and driven home relentlessly by Mr. Putin, that Russia is facing an existential threat from the West.

“We can feel that victory is near,” said Andrei, 43, who said he traveled to Moscow for the May 9 holiday celebrations from the Chita region, almost 3,000 miles from the capital.

Like others interviewed for this story, he declined to provide his last name, indicating apparent mistrust of Western news media.

He was among those who braved the cold and even snow to visit the collection of recently captured Western military equipment. (Ukraine also displays destroyed Russian tanks in the center of Kyiv). But the brash exhibit in Moscow, with flags on the equipment showing which countries donated them to Ukraine, fits Russia’s narrative that it is fighting against the whole developed world — and winning.

“When you see all this, and all these flags, it is clear that the whole world is supplying weapons and you know that a world war is going on,” Andrei said. “It’s Russia against the whole world, as usual.”

Ivan, another visitor to Victory Park, waited his turn to pose in front of the rusted and charred hulk of the German Leopard tank, flashing a smile and giving a thumbs up as his friend photographed him. People jostled for a spot beside a similarly destroyed American-made M1 Abrams tank.

“There has been so much talk about these Abrams, about these Leopards, and what is the result?” said Ivan, 26.

“They are all standing here, we are looking at them, we see what condition they are in. This is great!” He smiled.

The bravado exhibited by Russians like Andrei and Ivan this month mirrors the confident posture of Mr. Putin as he steers Russia past economic challenges and to greater battlefield advantage in Ukraine.

His inauguration included a church service in which he was blessed by the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill I, who expressed hope that the president would remain in power until “the end of the century.”

According to the Levada Center, an independent polling institution, about 75 percent of Russians profess support for their army’s actions in Ukraine. (About a quarter of the population is against the war, the poll and other research shows, but protests are effectively banned, and repression is so intense that many people are afraid to acknowledge or share antiwar or anti-government content online).

Thousands who fled Russia have returned. Their lives have adapted to the new normal, and have actually changed less than those in the West might expect.

“It’s what, the 13th package of sanctions they’re making?” Ivan said, laughing. “So far, we don’t feel anything.”

Robots built by Yandex, Russia’s homegrown version of Google, can be seen traversing Moscow’s sidewalks making deliveries. Inflation is under control, at least for now. According to a report last month by Forbes, the number of billionaires in Moscow — measured in U.S. dollars — increased so much that the city moved up four spots in the global rankings, behind only New York City.

“Most of the brands that allegedly left Russia have not gone anywhere,” said Andrei, adding that he and his daughter planned to have lunch at a rebranded K.F.C. What had changed, he said, was that “the consolidation of society has taken place” over the rationale for the war, as well as the conservative social values Mr. Putin is pushing.

Mr. Putin and others trumpeted that apparent cohesion when the official results of his preordained election victory in March were announced, with a record 88 percent of the vote going to the incumbent, a figure that Western democracies decried as a sham.

“Russia is such a complicated, multiethnic country that to understand it and govern it, you need more than one term,” said Oleg V. Panchurin, 32, a veteran of the war in Ukraine.

“If it’s going to be President Putin, then I would be happy if he served 10 terms,” said Mr. Panchurin, who said had been recently wounded near Zaporizhzhia by a Ukrainian drone.

Some civilians who were interviewed said they were pleased the president had taken a hard-line conservative position promoting traditional family values.

Zhenya, 36, and his girlfriend, Masha, expressed gratitude that the government had “finally handled the L.G.B.T.Q. issue” — by banning what it called the “L.G.B.T.Q. movement.” The pair were attending a 1940s-themed Victory Day celebration in a park in central Moscow where participants fox-trotted and waltzed as a live military band played.

With no one who could credibly replace him, the prospect that Mr. Putin will stay in power as long as he is alive feels increasingly possible to ordinary Russians, said Andrei Kolesnikov, a Moscow-based senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center.

“Everyone understands that this is for a long time,” he said. “The longer he is in power, the more apprehension there is about who will be next, who will be worse.”

“We are moving closer to a scenario where we could see the effect of Stalin, when, after his death, people were crying, because people didn’t know how to live,” Mr. Kolesnikov added.

Russians who oppose the government say they increasingly fear that they will have to wait for Mr. Putin’s death for anything to change.

“I feel a very strong sense of hopelessness,” said Yulia, 48, a teacher who was visiting the grave of Aleksei A. Navalny, the opposition politician, in southeast Moscow. Mr. Navalny, who died in prison in an Arctic penal colony in February, had long been considered the only possible challenger to Mr. Putin. Yulia declined to use her last name out of fear of possible repercussions.

“I don’t see a way out of this,” she said.

Yulia’s son, Pavel, said, “We are sure that everything depends on the death of person in a certain place.” His mother shushed him, noticing the uniformed Russian National Guard forces that stood nearby; even in death, Mr. Navalny is still monitored closely by the government. Still, there was a steady stream of visitors to the grave.

On the other side of Moscow, mourners were still coming to show their respects to the 145 victims of the March 22 terrorist attack at Crocus City Hall, one of the deadliest in Europe in the past decade. Floral wreaths, plush toys and photos of the victims were placed near the destroyed concert hall.

The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack, and American officials have blamed Islamic State Khorasan Province, or ISIS-K , a branch of the group. Even so, the Kremlin has sought to cast blame on Ukraine and the West.

One woman who declined to give her name said she was sure the West was behind it — despite the fact that the United States had warned Moscow of an imminent attack . According to the Levada Center, half of those polled believe Ukraine was behind the attack, with almost 40 percent saying Western intelligence services were involved.

Vladimir, 26, who was visiting the improvised memorial for the first time, said he didn’t blame the Kremlin for failing to heed the warnings.

“I want the terrorists to be destroyed,” said Vladimir, a supermarket employee. But the president, he said, was doing a great job. “He works so hard.”

“ May God keep him alive and healthy,” he said. “If, God forbid, Putin dies, what will happen to our country?”

Anastasia Kharchenko contributed reporting from Moscow and Alina Lobzina from London.

Valerie Hopkins covers the war in Ukraine and how the conflict is changing Russia, Ukraine, Europe and the United States. She is based in Moscow. More about Valerie Hopkins

Our Coverage of the War in Ukraine

News and Analysis

Ukraine asked the Biden administration to provide more intelligence  on the position of Russian forces and military targets inside Russia, according to U.S. and Ukrainian officials.

President Volodymyr Zelensky signed into law a bill allowing some Ukrainian convicts to serve  in the country’s military in exchange for the possibility of parole at the end of their service, a move that highlights Kyiv’s desperate attempts to replenish its forces.

NATO allies are inching closer to sending troops into Ukraine to train Ukrainian forces . The move would be another blurring of a previous red line and could draw the United States and Europe more directly into the war.

World’s Nuclear Inspector: Rafael Grossi took over the International Atomic Energy Agency five years ago at what now seems like a far less fraught moment. With atomic fears everywhere, the inspector is edging toward mediator .

Frozen Russian Assets: As much as $300 billion in frozen Russian assets is piling up profits and interest income by the day. Now, Ukraine’s allies are considering how to use those gains to aid Kyiv .

Rebuilding Ukrainian Villages: The people of the Kherson region have slowly rebuilt their livelihoods since Ukraine’s military forced out Russian troops. Now they are bracing for another Russian attack .

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