The bosses' union : how employers organized to fight labor before the New Deal / Vilja Hulden.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hulden, Vilja, 1977- author.

Series:

Working Class in American History

The working class in American history

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Labor unions--United States--History--20th century.

Labor unions.

Labor unions--United States--History--19th century.

Open and closed shop--United States--History--20th century.

Open and closed shop.

Open and closed shop--United States--History--19th century.

Industrial relations--United States--History--20th century.

Industrial relations.

Industrial relations--United States--History--19th century.

United States.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (407 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Urbana : University of Illinois Press, [2023]

Summary:

"From the 1880s through the 1920s, American labor endured an ongoing assault on worker's rights by open shop campaigns organized by employers. Vilja Hulden delves into the decades-long effort to not only counter but discredit labor's attempts to exercise its own power. The employer-invented term closed shop was a potent rhetorical tool that shifted public opinion from concerns about inequality and dangerous working conditions to a belief that unions trampled an individual's right to work. As Hulden shows, employers used different methods to conduct closed-shop campaigns. Conciliators assumed a pose of benevolent cooperation while hardliners like the National Association of Manufacturers condemned the closed shop and used financial and social networks to lobby government, purchase newspaper space, and place sympathizers in politics. Employers did not always get what they wanted. But their superior ability to exercise power strengthened an anti-labor agenda that showed a remarkable consistency in its tactics and goals over a fifty-year period"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Introduction: Who Makes the Rules?

1. The Invention of the Closed Shop: The NAM Weighs In on the Labor Question

2. The Deep History of the Closed or Union Shop

3. The Potential and Limitations of the Trade Agreement

4. The Range and Roots of Employer Positions on Labor

5. Employers, Unite? The Bases and Challenges of Employer Collective Action

6. The Battle over the State

7. The Battle over Public Opinion

8. Defending the Status Quo Ante Bellum

9. The Gift That Keeps on Giving: Institutionalizing the Open-Shop Ideal in the 1920s

Coda: The Working Class and the Prerequites of Power

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

Other Format:

Print version: Hulden, Vilja The Bosses' Union

ISBN:

9780252044977

0252044975

9780252053887

0252053885

OCLC:

1373985377