Description
Book SynopsisIn a richly detailed survey of labor law and labor history, Forbath challenges the notion of American “individualism.” He shows that, over time, struggles with the courts and the legal order were crucial in reshaping labor’s outlook, driving the labor movement to temper its radical goals.
Trade ReviewA 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, Stanford Law School
Table of ContentsPreface Acknowledgments Introduction 1. Broad Contexts Recasting American "Exceptionalism" The State of Courts and Parties 2. Judicial Review in Labor's Political Culture Samuel Gompers and in Jacobs Hours Laws in Illinois Hours Laws in Colorado Pressed toward a Minimalist Politics 3. Government by Injunction The Origins and Dimensions of Government by Injunction The Origins of Governmentby Injunction in Railway Strikes The Rise and Repression of City-Wide Boycotts 4. Semi-Outlawry The Usurpation of Local Polities Courts and the Uses of Police, Guards and Troops Labor's Resort to Injunctions 5. The Language of the Law and the Remaking of Labor's Rights Consciousness "Labor's Whole Gospel Is Liberty of Contract" Labor's Constitution A Great Popular Defiance Anti-Injunction Laws before Norris-LaGuardia The Norris-LaGuardia Act Conclusion Appendix A: Labor Legislation in the Courts, 1885-1930 Appendix B: Approximating the Numbers of Labor Injunctions and Their Relation to Other Strike Statistics, 1880-1930 Appendix C: Judicial Treatment of Statutes Seeking to Protect Union Organizing and Action by Revising Equity and Common Law Doctrine Index
