Reprint of the Free Press book originally published in 1991 (and warmly received by PW-4/12/91, LJ-4/12/91, and Kirkus 4/15/91). Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.

In this important new book, Melvyn Dubofsky traces the relationship between the American labor movement and the federal government from the 1870s until the present. His is the only book to focus specifically on the 'labor question' as a lens through which to view more clearly the basic political, economic, and social forces that have divided citizens throughout the industrial era. Many scholars contend that the state has acted to suppress trade union autonomy and democracy, as well as rank-and-file militancy, in the interest of social stability and conclude that the law has rendered unions the servants of capital and the state. In contrast, Dubofsky argues that the relationship between the state and labor is far more complex and that workers and their unions have gained from positive state intervention at particular junctures in American history. He focuses on six such periods when, in varying combinations, popular politics, administrative policy formation, and union influence on the legislative and executive branches operated to promote stability by furthering the interests of workers and their organizations.

At a time when liberalism is in disarray, this vastly illuminating book locates the origins of its crisis. Those origins, says Alan Brinkley, are paradoxically situated during the second term of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, whose New Deal had made liberalism a fixture of American politics and society. The End of Reform shows how the liberalism of the early New Deal—which set out to repair and, if necessary, restructure America’s economy—gave way to its contemporary counterpart, which is less hostile to corporate capitalism and more solicitous of individual rights. Clearly and dramatically, Brinkley identifies the personalities and events responsible for this transformation while pointing to the broader trends in American society that made the politics of reform increasingly popular. It is both a major reinterpretation of the New Deal and a crucial map of the road to today’s political landscape.

How the Cold War affected local-level union politics

The Unfinished Struggle is one of the most concise, comprehensive, and accessible histories of the modern American labor movement ever written. Labor scholar and activist Steve Babson's dramatic narrative examines the numerous attempts to organize workers from the Great Uprising of 1877 to the 'sitdown' strikes of the 1930s to the present day. Babson illuminates the tumultuous past, evolving agenda, and continuing conflicts of the labor movement. He carefully identifies the causes of labor's decline in recent decades and explains union leaders' attempts to revive their organizations. Most important, Babson shows readers how the fortunes of organized labor are tied to larger trends in American history.

Laboring for Freedom examines the concept of freedom in the context of American labor history. Nine chronological chapters develop themes which show that liberty of contract and inalienable rights form two contradictory traditions concerning freedom: one tradition insists that liberty involves the expression of individual will with regard to one's property (i.e. one's labor); the second tradition holds that there are fundamental rights of man that must neither be taken away by the state nor surrendered by the individual. The tensions between these two concepts are traced in the book. Topics covered include republican independence, corporate paternalism, the compromises of collective bargaining, and human rights in a global economy. The book argues that ultimately freedom is best analyzed as a changing set of constraints, rather than an attainable ideal.

Focusing on the political culture forged by Rocky Mountain workers from the 1870s through the 1920s, this book shows how the unique working-class politics of the region led to remarkable successes in securing progressive labor legislation. These successes--especially in improving workers' hours, wages, and safety--in turn played a central role in transforming the nation's attitudes toward workers' rights. Examining political culture in the everyday lives of workers (from shop floors to union halls to recreation), the author uncovers a labor movement based as much on pragmatism as on ideology, and he traces how its members productively focused their efforts on political action at the local and state levels. In the process, they developed a genuinely social-democratic political culture.