Labor Embattled: History, Power, RightsUniversity of Illinois Press, 2005 - 166 pages American unions are weaker now than at any time in the past hundred years, with fewer than one in ten private-sector workers currently organized. In Labor Embattled, David Brody says this is a problem not only for the unions but also a disaster for American democracy and social justice. In a series of historically informed chapters, Brody explores recent developments affecting American workers in light of labor's past. Of special concern to him is the erosion of the rights of workers under the modern labor law, which he argues is rooted in the original formulation of the Wagner Act. Brody explains how the ideals of free labor, free speech, freedom of association, and freedom of contract have been interpreted and canonized in ways that unfailingly reduce the capacity for workers' collective action, while silently removing impediments to employers coercion of workers. His lucid and passionate essays combine legal and labor history to reveal how laws designed to undergird workers' rights now essentially hamstring them. David Brody is professor emeritus of history at the University of California at Davis and Berkeley. He is the author of Workers in Industrial America: Essays on the |
Contents
Responsibilities of the Labor Historian | 13 |
Labors Institutional Sources | 30 |
Section 8a2 and the Origins | 46 |
World War I and Industrial Democracy | 62 |
Reforming the American Workplace? | 82 |
On the Representation Election | 99 |
Freedom and Solidarity in American Labor Law | 110 |
Finding a Way | 138 |
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Adair administration AFL-CIO American labor law American trade unionism antiunion bargain collectively became Bluestones collective bargaining collective-bargaining committees company union conspiracy course craft unions crisis David Brody Deal debate decision Dunlop economic employee representation employers employment enforce ERPs essay fact federal firms free labor freedom of association Gompers Gutman Human Rights Watch industrial democracy Industrial Relations issue Jacoby's John John Brophy Labor Board labor history labor movement labor organizations labor's rights law's legislation Leon Keyserling Lewis liberty of contract mass-production ment Montgomery National Labor Relations national unions NLRB nonunion Norris-LaGuardia organized labor Perlman political principle railroads representation election representation plans representatives right to organize rights of workers Rockefeller Samuel Gompers Section 7(a Section 8a(2 self-organization Selig Perlman Senator steel strike Taft-Hartley tion trade unionism unfair labor practice unionists wage Wagner Act welfare capitalism Wisconsin School workplace representation yellow-dog contract York