Law and the Shaping of the American Labor Movement [Paperback]

William E. Forbath (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0674517822 | ISBN-13: 978-0674517820 | Publication Date: May 1, 1991

Why did American workers, unlike their European counterparts, fail to forge a class-based movement to pursue broad social reform? Was it simply that they lacked class consciousness and were more interested in personal mobility? In a richly detailed survey of labor law and labor history, William Forbath challenges this notion of American "individualism." In fact, he argues, the nineteenth-century American labor movement was much like Europe's labor movements in its social and political outlook, but in the decades around the turn of the century, the prevailing attitude of American trade unionists changed. Forbath shows that, over time, struggles with the courts and the legal order were crucial to reshaping labor's outlook, driving the labor movement to temper its radical goals.

Editorial Reviews

Review

A very distinguished work...Forbath derives bold and original conclusions...and is sensitive to the political and social context in which law functions...His book is right and relevant today.
--Lance Liebman, Harvard Law School

This work is nothing less than a full-scale reinterpretation of the making of American pure-and-simple unionism. Forbath's book is certain to provoke lively and health-giving debate; it will be required reading for all students of American labor history.
--David Brody, University of California, Davis

In this admirable synthesis of legal and social history, Forbath reconstructs in brilliant detail the bitter drama of the most violent years of U.S. labor relations, the era of the labor injunction...It effectively replaces Frankfurter and Greene's classic of 1930 on labor injunctions as the standard work on the subject.
--Robert W. Gordon, School of Law, Stanford University

Review

A very distinguished work...Forbath derives bold and original conclusions...and is sensitive to the political and social context in which law functions...His book is right and relevant today.
--Lance Liebman, Harvard Law School --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 230 pages
• Publisher: Harvard University Press (May 1, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0674517822
• ISBN-13: 978-0674517820
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #606,776 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Painfully boring but insightful, February 8, 2004

By 

Benjamin Egan (Davis Square) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Law and the Shaping of the American Labor Movement (Paperback)

I am being forced to read this for a class on American Legal History. It is insightful and the arguments are compelling. The labor movement in the US was influenced to a great degree by the judiciary during the end of the 19th century. Court action changed the character of the labor movement from one of broad social reform to fragmented trade unionism and "Voluntarism." Voluntarism became predominant in labor's legal pretext, in part, due to:
1. "...the courts... principally determined how labor legislation, once passed, would fare."
2. Those legal victores for labor (Sherman Anti-Trust Act 1890, etc;) benefitted the institutions that labor was trying to protect itself from.
3. The courts repeatedly upheld "freedom of contract" arguments in In re Jacobs, Ritchie v. People, etc;
4. Judiciary attacked the economic weapons of labor: city-wide boycotts, symapthy strikes, etc;

Labor (AFL, Gompers, etc;) eventually asked for independent labor relations i.e., freedom to negotiate contracts without government intervention...

I believe that sums it up fairly well, but as a fair warning, this book is academic and painfully boring. If given a choice between hammering my balls flat or rereading this book, I would be forced to make a difficult decision indeed.