The State and the Unions Labor relations, Law, and the Organized Labor Movement in America 1880-1960 0521314526, 9780521314527

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Fifty years ago, enactment of the Wagner National Labor Relations Act gave organized labor what it has regarded ever since as one of its greatest assets: a legislative guarantee of the right of American workers to organize and bargain collectively. Yet although the Wagner Act’s guarantees remain substantially unaltered, organized labor in America today is in deep decline. Addressing this apparent paradox, Christopher Tomlins offers here a critical examination of the impact of the National Labor Relations Act on American unions. By studying the intentions and goals of policy makers in the context of the dev velopment of labor law from the late nineteenth century, and by looking carefully at the course of labor history since the act’s passage, Tomlins shows how public policy has been shaped to confine labor’s role in the American economy. If they are to have any hope of curing their contemporary organiza— tional malaise, he concludes, the unions must recognize that many of their problems stem from the laws which purport to protect them. Throughout the past century, Tomlins finds, the readiness of the state to ac knowledge the legitimacy of workers’ collective activity has been conditioned by two major considerations. First, that activity must not threaten the state’s own predominance. Second, it must not compromise the state’s capacity to accommodate demands arising from the leading sectors of American capital' ism for an environment congenial to their own expansion. Prior to the 19305, these considerations produced public policies which were generally hostile to organized labor. The social and economic upheavals of the Great Depression brought positive protections of workers’ rights and collective barv gaining, but by the end of that decade it was clear that serious pursuit of these innovations had become conditional upon their capacity to contribute to higher productivity and efficient capital accumulation. Even at the mo! ment of its birth, industrial democracy - long represented as the keystone of the industrial relations system envisioned by the Wagner Act’s advocates — was already acutely vulnerable to these indices of industrial “stability.” It has remained so, Tomlins shows, ever since. “This is the first comprehensive history written from extensive primary mate

rials of modern American labor law and labor relations policy. Tomlins's study, founded upon deep digging in previously unexplored archives - records of the A.F.L., the Labor Board, and of important Board members — shows how ideological conflicts over labor policy were carried on in struggles at the field level of enforcement. The real subject of the book is that of contending '11:: qép'finn in inrll retrial '" visions about how to realize the ideal of society. Tomlins argues his case in a dis¢ 001 with considerable moral passion.” R(

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