Defending rights : law, labor politics, and the state in California, 1890-1925 / Thomas Ralph Clark.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Clark, Thomas R., 1958-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Labor unions--Law and legislation--California--History.

Labor unions.

Labor disputes--California--History.

Labor disputes.

Labor injunctions--California--History.

Labor injunctions.

Labor movement--California--History.

Labor movement.

Labor movement--United States--States--History.

History.

Labor unions--Law and legislation.

United States.

California.

Physical Description:

297 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Detroit : Wayne State University Press, [2002]

Summary:

In ongoing efforts to understand the "exceptionalism" of the American labor movement, historians have proposed that American unions never fully embraced the independent and social democratic politics of their European counterparts because a hostile legal system in the United States fostered a deep distrust of state intervention among early labor leaders. Thomas Ralph Clark adds new perspective to the revisionist reexamination of the characterization of the early labor movement as apolitical and antistatist. Focusing on law and labor activity at the state level rather than the national level and using California as his case study, Clark shows how legal hostility pushed labor to enter local politics with great urgency and forced labor to appeal to the state and support state intervention.

Clark provides a unique look at law's impact in two different settings -- closed-shop San Francisco and open-shop Los Angeles -- within the parameters of a single state legal system. Clark describes how local court and police hostility pushed labor into periodic experiments with third-party politics and, as in San Francisco, sometimes helped labor achieve some measure of control over the police through state courts. Since employers could also turn to state courts for injunctions, unions began an anti-injunction campaign through interest-group lobbying and built coalitions with Progressive reformers. Though it sought to limit state intervention in labor disputes, the movement still pursued an array of state-sponsored reforms. Such approaches to law and politics, argues Clark, forecast the labor-liberal alliance that would become the hallmark of the New Deal coalition.

Contents:

Policing strikes and local labor politics in San Francisco and Los Angeles, 1901-1911

"A use of psychology" : California courts and the labor injunction, 1890-1909

Labor's anti-injunction bills in a progressive legislature, 1910-1916

"Law and order" and the waning of labor's political power, 1916-1917

The promise of federal protection : the ambiguous legacy of World War I

The "American plan" and labor's use of the injunction in the 1920s.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 231-280) and index.

ISBN:

0814330436

OCLC:

50149502