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Labor and the State
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12609 |
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Section : |
BOOK WORLD
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| Issue
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6 / 1987 |
2,827 Words |
| Author
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Robert Nisbet
Robert Nisbet is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise
Institute. His most recent book was Conservativism (University
of Minnesota Press, 1986). |
INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA
Ideological Origins of the National
Labor Relations Policy
Howard Dickman
LaSalle, Illinois: Open Court, 1987.
445 pp., $32.95
This book lives up entirely to its title, but it would be a pity to suppose in advance that it is nothing more than what its title declares. For, in the process of writing a detailed, thoroughly documented history of labor relations policy in the United States, Dickman provides us with a fascinating background to his main subject; one that takes us back to the breakup of the Middle Ages and to early efforts by the new national states to curb, regulate, and apply criminal law to organizations of workers. Thirteen appendices supply us with key documents, in full or in extracts, ranging from The Ordinance of Laborers of 1349 down through the centuries to the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 - the historic Wagner Act.
The first sentence of the 1349 Ordinance reads: "Every person able in body under the age of sixty years, not having to live on, being required, shall be bound to serve him that doth require him, or else committed to the gaol, until he find surety to serve." Now turn to the third paragraph of the Wagner Act 586 years later: "Experience has proved that protection by law of the right of employees to organize and bargain collectively safeguards commerce from injury, impairment, or interruption, and promotes the flow of commerce by removing certain recognized sources of industrial strife and unrest, by encouraging practices
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