The Right and Labor in America
Politics, Ideology, and Imagination

Nelson Lichtenstein (Edited by), Elizabeth Tandy Shermer (Edited by)

9780812223606

Paperback / softback, published 5 April 2016

440 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.9 cm, 0.742 kg

"Analyzing the place of organized labor in the history of American conservatism, The Right and Labor in America demonstrates that the antiunion conviction that recently buried the 2009 Employee Free Choice Act and laid siege to public-employee unions has been present in American conservatism since corporate capitalism emerged." (Journal of American History) "This volume makes a major contribution to a growing body of work on the origins of modern conservatism and the rise of the New Right. It vividly demonstrates that if antiunionism did not assume the same significance as antitaxation or Christian fundamentalism, it proved to be significant in its own right. Future scholars will have to pay heed." (Bruce Laurie, author of The Rise of Conservatism in America, 1945-2000)

The legislative attack on public sector unionism that gave rise to the uproar in Wisconsin and other union strongholds in 2011 was not just a reaction to the contemporary economic difficulties faced by the government. Rather, it was the result of a longstanding political and ideological hostility to the very idea of trade unionism put forward by a conservative movement whose roots go as far back as the Haymarket Riot of 1886. The controversy in Madison and other state capitals reveals that labor's status and power has always been at the core of American conservatism, today as well as a century ago.
The Right and Labor in America explores the multifaceted history and range of conservative hostility toward unionism, opening the door to a fascinating set of individuals, movements, and institutions that help explain why, in much of the popular imagination, union leaders are always "bosses" and trade union organizers are nothing short of "thugs." The contributors to this volume explore conservative thought about unions, in particular the ideological impulses, rhetorical strategies, and political efforts that conservatives have deployed to challenge unions as a force in U.S. economic and political life over the century. Among the many contemporary books on American parties, personalities, and elections that try to explain why political disputes are so divisive, this collection of original and innovative essays is essential reading.

Introduction. Entangled Histories: American Conservatism and the U.S. Labor Movement in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries
-Nelson Lichtenstein and Elizabeth Tandy Shermer
I. THE CONSERVATIVE SEARCH FOR SOCIAL HARMONY
Chapter 1. Unions, Modernity, and the Decline of American Economic Nationalism
-Andrew Wender Cohen
Chapter 2. The American Legion and Striking Workers During the Interwar Period
-Christopher Nehls
Chapter 3. Democracy or Seduction? The Demonization of Scientific Management and the Deification of Human Relations
-Chris Nyland and Kyle Bruce
II. REGION, RACE, AND RESISTANCE TO ORGANIZED LABOR
Chapter 4. Capital Flight, "States' Rights," and the Anti-Labor Offensive After World War II
-Tami J. Friedman
Chapter 5. Orval Faubus and the Rise of Anti-Labor Populism in Northwestern Arkansas
-Michael Pierce
Chapter 6. "Is Freedom of the Individual Un-American?" Right-to-Work Campaigns and Anti-Union Conservatism, 1943−1958
-Elizabeth Tandy Shermer
III. APPROPRIATING THE LANGUAGE OF CIVIL RIGHTS
Chapter 7. Singing "The Right-to-Work Blues": The Politics of Race in the Campaign for "Voluntary Unionism" in Postwar California
-Reuel Sc hiller
Chapter 8. Whose Rights? Litigating the Right to Work, 1940-1980
-Sophia Z. Lee
Chapter 9. "Such Power Spells Tyranny": Business Opposition to Administrative Governance and the Transformation of Fair Employment Policy in Illinois, 1945−1964
-Alexander Gourse
IV. THE SPECTER OF UNION POWER AND CORRUPTION
Chapter 10. Pattern for Partnership: Putting Labor Racketeering on the Nation's Agenda in the Late 1950s
-David Witwer
Chapter 11. "Compulsory Unionism": Sylvester Petro and the Career of an Anti-Union Idea, 1957−1987
-Joseph McCartin and Jean-Christian Vinel
Chapter 12. Wal-Mart, John Tate, and Their Anti-Union America
-Nelson Lichtenstein
Chapter 13. "All Deals Are Off": The Dunlop Commission and Employer Opposition to Labor Law Reform
-John Logan
Chapter 14. Is Democracy in the Cards? A Democratic Defense of the Employee Free Choice Act
-Susan Orr
Notes
List of Contributors
Index