Labor Embattled
Subtitle: History, Power, Rights (Working Class in American History)
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Published: March 30, 2005
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 184
ISBN-13: 9780252030048
Subjects: Social History; Trade unions; History; Politics / Current Events; History: American; USA; Labor & Industrial Relations - Unions; United States - General; History / United States / General; Labor & Employment; Labor laws and legislation; Labor movement; Labor unions; United States
Description: Explores recent developments affecting American workers in light of labor's past. Of special concern is the erosion of the rights of workers under the modern labor law, which Brody 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. He combines legal and labor history to reveal how laws designed to undergird workers' rights now essentially hamstring them. [Publisher web site].