From the dawn of the twentieth century to the early 1960s, public-sector unions generally had no legal right to strike, bargain, or arbitrate, and government workers could be fired simply for joining a union. Public Workers is the first book to analyze why public-sector labor law evolved as it did, separate from and much more restrictive than private-sector labor law, and what effect this law had on public-sector unions, organized labor as a whole, and by extension all of American politics. Joseph E. Slater shows how public-sector unions survived, represented their members, and set the stage for the most remarkable growth of worker organization in American history. Slater examines the battles of public-sector unions in the workplace, courts, and political arena, from the infamous Boston police strike of 1919, to teachers in Seattle fighting a yellow-dog rule, to the BSEIU in the 1930s representing public-sector janitors, to the fate of the powerful Transit Workers Union after New York City purchased the subways, to the long struggle by AFSCME that produced the nation's first public-sector labor law in Wisconsin in 1959. Slater introduces readers to a determined and often-ignored segment of the union movement and expands our knowledge of working men and women, the institutions they formed, and the organizational obstacles they faced.

Barack Obama's famous "Blueprint for Change," part and parcel of the campaign that culminated in his historic election as U.S. president in November 2008, openly announced his support for the Employee Free Choice Act (H.R. 1409) suggesting that major change was imminent in U.S. labor and employment law. Although promised legislative change has yet to materialize, there appears to be a growing consensus that the current system for addressing employment disputes in union-represented and non-union workplaces deserves renewed attention and needs significant restructuring. Thus, the issues taken up by this prominent U.S. conference remain relevant to policy debates which will likely continue to rage in the United States for years to come. Based on papers delivered at the 2009 conference of the New York University School of Law's Center on Labor and Employment Law - the 62nd in this venerable and highly influential series - the book presents articles updated by the authors to reflect more recent developments, as well as new papers to ensure a comprehensive and current analysis of both what has actually changed and which trends seem to be gaining momentum. Twenty-two outstanding scholars and practitioners in U.S. labor law and practice pay special attention to such issues as the following: mandatory arbitration of employment disputes in non-union sector; call for improved administration of the National Labor Relations Act in expediting elections and reinstating discriminatees; more privatized forms of dispute resolution such as arbitration and mediation; card-check and neutrality agreements bypassing government processes; proposed reform of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act; evaluating market-based defenses to pay equity claims; EEOC initiatives in public enforcement of equality law; and challenges to labor relations in state and local governments.

A Primer on American Labor Law is an accessible guide for non-specialists and labor lawyers - labor and management representatives, students and general practice lawyers, and trade unionists, government officials and academics from other countries. It covers topics such as the National Labor Relations Act, unfair labor practices, the collective bargaining relationship, dispute resolution, the public sector and public-interest labor law. This updated fifth edition contains extensive new materials covering developments that include the repeal or change in public employee labor law and the development of case law relating to wrongful dismissals and pension reform in the public sector; bankruptcy in both the private and public sector; ADA litigation and 2008 amendments of that statute; new cases on all subjects, but particularly Bush and Obama NLRB decisions, sexual harassment, sexual orientation, and retaliation; and the globalization of labor disputes in labor-management relations in the United States, with particular reference to professional sports disputes and the extraterritoriality of American labor law generally.

In a riveting account based on new documents and interviews with more than 400 sources on both sides of the aisle, award-winning reporter Michael Grunwald reveals the vivid story behind President Obama’s $800 billion stimulus bill, one of the most important and least understood pieces of legislation in the history of the country. Grunwald’s meticulous reporting shows how the stimulus, though reviled on the right and the left, helped prevent a depression while jump-starting the president’s agenda for lasting change. As ambitious and far-reaching as FDR’s New Deal, the Recovery Act is a down payment on the nation’s economic and environmental future, the purest distillation of change in the Obama era. The stimulus has launched a transition to a clean-energy economy, doubled our renewable power, and financed unprecedented investments in energy efficiency, a smarter grid, electric cars, advanced biofuels, and green manufacturing. It is computerizing America’s pen-and-paper medical system. Its Race to the Top is the boldest education reform in U.S. history. It has put in place the biggest middle-class tax cuts in a generation, the largest research investments ever, and the most extensive infrastructure investments since Eisenhower’s interstate highway system. It includes the largest expansion of antipoverty programs since the Great Society, lifting millions of Americans above the poverty line, reducing homelessness, and modernizing unemployment insurance. Like the first New Deal, Obama’s stimulus has created legacies that last: the world’s largest wind and solar projects, a new battery industry, a fledgling high-speed rail network, and the world’s highest-speed Internet network. Michael Grunwald goes behind the scenes—sitting in on cabinet meetings, as well as recounting the secret strategy sessions where Republicans devised their resistance to Obama—to show how the stimulus was born, how it fueled a resurgence on the right, and how it is changing America. The New New Deal shatters the conventional Washington narrative and it will redefine the way Obama’s first term is perceived.

This book uses the concepts of vulnerability and resilience to analyze the situation of individuals and institutions in the context of the employment relationship. It is based on the premise that both employer and employee are vulnerable to various social, economic, and political forces, although differently so. It demonstrates how in responding to those complementary institutional relationships of employer and employee the state unequally and inequitably favors employers over employees. Several chapters included in this collection also consider how the state shapes, creates and maintains through law the social identities of employer and employee and how that legal regime operates as the allocation of power and privilege. This unique and fundamental role of the state in defining the employment relationship profoundly affects the respective abilities and degree of resiliency of actual employers and employees. Other chapters explore how attention to the respective vulnerability and resilience of those who do and those who direct work in assessing the employment relationship can raise fundamental questions of social justice and suggest new avenues for critical engagement with labor and employment law. Collectively, these pieces articulate a framework for imaging what would constitute an appropriately "Responsive State" in the employment context and how those interested in social justice might begin to use the concepts of vulnerability and resilience in their arguments.

With over 20 million people on its payroll, the government is the largest employer in the country. Managing people who do the nation’s work is of critical importance to politicians, government leaders, and citizens alike. Personnel Management in Government: Politics and Process, eighth edition, examines the progress and innovations that public personnel professionals are making to address changes in the political, legal, and managerial environment of government. It provides students with a comprehensive understanding of human resource management within its historical and political context in the public sector. A number of new developments are addressed in the eighth edition, including discussion of: Human resource management in nonprofit organizations in an all-new, dedicated chapter Current and future challenges to recruitment and hiring, including the use of social media in recruitment Privatization and contracting out The rise of employment "at will" policies Digital technology or "digitalization" in HRM and the need to enhance cybersecurity Managing performance with human capital analytics Increased reliance on telework States’ attacks on public sector labor unions HRM changes under the Trump administration Since publication of the first edition in 1977, Personnel Management in Government has addressed issues not yet considered mainstream, but that have proven central to the development of the field over time. This long-standing but no less innovative textbook is required reading for all students of public, government, and non-profit personnel management.

The author is convinced that there is a ruling class in America today. He examines the American power structure as it has developed in the 1980s. He presents systematic, empirical evidence that a fixed group of privileged people dominates the American economy and government. The book demonstrates that an upper class comprising only one-half of one percent of the population occupies key positions within the corporate community. It shows how leaders within this "power elite" reach government and dominate it through processes of special-interest lobbying, policy planning and candidate selection. It is written not to promote any political ideology, but to analyze our society with accuracy.