Description
Book SynopsisThe Employee examines how American businesses dominated and influenced labor law as they pushed for an ever-narrower definition of "employee" and maneuvered to exclude workers from the right to organize.
Trade Review"
The Employee is a welcome and much appreciated addition to the historical literature on work, workers, and the law. It boldly underscores the need to reform labor laws in the interest of the American people." *
American Historical Review *
"Vinel has created an engaging and illuminating account of how employees have been defined in the United States. . . .
The Employee represents a significant contribution to our understanding of labor and legal history and the longstanding battles that have raged over the efforts to build democracy in the American workplace. As such, it is a welcome addition for anyone wanting to tell a more nuanced story about labor in the United States." *
Labor Studies Journal *
"As New Deal labor protections grow increasingly anachronistic and relations between workers and employers become more tenuous and unbalanced, Jean-Christian Vinel offers a startlingly original narrative explaining this shift. With painstaking research and shrewd insight, Vinel reveals an untold story: how more than a century of struggle over what it means to be an 'employee' has disempowered American workers. Anyone interested in the past and future of labor simply must read this fascinating book." * Joseph A. McCartin, author of
Collision Course: Ronald Reagan, the Air Traffic Controllers, and the Strike That Changed America *
"
The Employee is a sensationally good book that combines labor history, sociological analysis, and legal history, all the while keeping the larger story of American liberalism, management practice, and the history of ideas in the near background. Vinel's book is extraordinarily timely because in the twenty-first century, as never before, the entire world of work is undergoing such a radical and profound transformation." * Nelson Lichtenstein, author of
State of the Union: A Century of American Labor *
"In this brilliant new book, Jean-Christian Vinel traces the origins of the blurry and shifting lines surrounding the legal category of the 'employee' and asks why democratic rights in the workplace have been denied to over ten million workers. Ranging from the Progressive Era to the recent effort to amend federal labor law through the RESPECT Act and gathering insight from both sides of the Atlantic, this book is essential reading for anyone who believes U.S. labor law must be refashioned to fit a new economy." * Craig Becker, General Counsel, AFL-CIO *
Table of ContentsIntroduction. "A Man Can't Serve Two Masters"
PART I. THE STRUGGLE FOR HARMONY
Chapter 1. The "Employé"
Chapter 2. Struggling Against Class
Chapter 3. The Sociology of Harmony
PART II. THE BATTLE FOR LOYALTY
Chapter 4. Is a Foreman a Worker?
Chapter 5. The Other Side of Industrial Pluralism
Chapter 6. Loyalty Ascendant
Chapter 7. The Wages of Textualism
Epilogue. Looking for Respect
Notes
Index
Acknowledgments
