"Right to work" states weaken collective bargaining rights and limit the ability of unions to effectively advocate on behalf of workers. As more and more states consider enacting right-to-work laws, observers trace the contemporary attack on organized labor to the 1980s and the Reagan era. In The Origins of Right to Work, however, Cedric de Leon contends that this antagonism began a century earlier with the Northern victory in the U.S. Civil War, when the political establishment revised the English common-law doctrine of conspiracy to equate collective bargaining with the enslavement of free white men. In doing so, de Leon connects past and present, raising critical questions that address pressing social issues. Drawing on the changing relationship between political parties and workers in nineteenth-century Chicago, de Leon concludes that if workers’ collective rights are to be preserved in a global economy, workers must chart a course of political independence and overcome long-standing racial and ethnic divisions.

This is a captivating chronicle of the fifty-year "David-Goliath" struggle between the bosses of Big Labor and Americans opposed to their coercive power.Few Americans realize their freedom to say "no" to compulsory unionism is largely the result of the valiant efforts of the National Right to Work Committee and its Legal Defense Foundation. Big business and the Republican Party have usually avoided the battle, leaving only Right to Work and its hundreds of thousands of grass roots supporters to defend employee freedom to get or keep their jobs without being forced to pay dues or join a union.Leef's narrative covers the New Deal legislation that gave Big Labor its initial monopoly power, and then the inspiring, decades-long struggle in Washington and the states to reduce the abusive power of labor bosses.The book also teaches a crucial lesson for those involved in public policy wars, regardless of their political philosophy -- that principled and dedicated idealists can prevail against strong special interest groups if they fight for a just cause.

In The Blue Eagle at Work, Charles J. Morris, a renowned labor law scholar and preeminent authority on the National Labor Relations Act, uncovers a long-forgotten feature of that act that offers an exciting new approach to the revitalization of the American labor movement and the institution of collective bargaining. He convincingly demonstrates that in private-sector nonunion workplaces, the Act guarantees that employees have a viable right to engage in collective bargaining through a minority union on a members-only basis. As a result of this startling breakthrough, American labor relations may never again be the same. Morris's underlying thesis is based on a meticulous analysis of statutory and decisional law and exhaustive historical research.Morris recounts the little-known history of union organizing and bargaining through members-only minority unions that prevailed widely both before and after passage of the 1935 Wagner Act. He explains how vintage language in the statute continues to protect minority-union bargaining today and how those rights are also guaranteed under the First Amendment and by international law to which the United States is a committed party. In addition, the book supplies detailed guidelines illustrating how this rediscovered workers' right could stimulate the development of new procedures for union organizing and bargaining and how management will likely respond to such efforts.The Blue Eagle at Work, which is clear and accessible to general readers as well as specialists, is an essential tool for labor-union officials and organizers, human-resource professionals in management, attorneys practicing in the field of labor and employment law, teachers and students of labor law and industrial relations, and concerned workers and managers who desire to understand the law that governs their relationship.

McCann explains how wage discrimination battles have raised public legal consciousness and helped reform activists mobilize working women in the pay equity movement over the past two decades. Rights at Work explores the political strategies in more than a dozen pay equity struggles since the late 1970s, including battles of state employees in Washington and Connecticut, as well as city employees in San Jose and Los Angeles. Relying on interviews with over 140 union and feminist activists, McCann shows that, even when the courts failed to correct wage discrimination, litigation and other forms of legal advocacy provided reformers with the legal discourse--the understanding of legal rights and their constraints--for defining and advancing their cause.

The value of work cannot be underestimated in today's world. Work is valuable because productive labour generates goods needed for survival, such as food and housing; goods needed for self-development, such as education and culture; and other material goods that people wish to have in order to live a fulfilling life. A job also generally inspires a sense of achievement, self-esteem and the esteem of others. People develop social relations at work, which can be very important for them. Work brings both material and non-material benefits. There is no doubt that work is a crucial good. Do we have a human right to this good? What is the content of the right? Does it impose a duty on governments to promote full employment? Does it entail an obligation to protect decent work? There is also a question about the right-holders. Do migrants have a right to work, for example? At the same time many people would rather not work. What kind of right is this, if many people do not want to have it? The chapters of this book address the uncertainty and controversy that surround the right to work both in theoretical scholarship and in policymaking. They discuss the philosophical underpinnings of the right to work, and its development in human rights law at national level (in jurisdictions such as the United Kingdom, Australia, Japan, France and the United States) and international level (in the context of the United Nations, the European Social Charter, the International Labour Organization, theEuropean Convention on Human Rights and other legal orders).

The very existence of an employment relationship places the human rights of a worker at risk. Employers can, and frequently do, exercise their managerial and disciplinary powers in a manner that interferes with the most fundamental rights of the individual worker. Adequate safeguards against such infringements are necessary if individuals are to receive full protection of their rights. This book examines how far the labour laws of England and Wales offer such guarantees, with a particular focus on dismissal law. The chapters reflect on the relationship between employment, labour, and human rights before conducting a detailed and critical analysis of the scope, shape, and application of domestic employment law. The framework for evaluation is drawn from the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, as it develops a principled and tailored approach to how the rights contained in the European Convention on Human Right should be enforced in working relationships. Statutory mechanisms, such as the law of unfair dismissal, and common law causes of action are examined and found to be lacking in their capacity to vindicate and enforce the human rights of workers. This book culminates in the proposal and elaboration upon an innovative solution, the Bill of Rights for Workers, that would draw on the successes of human rights and labour law instruments to render the Convention rights directly enforceable in the relationship between a worker and their employer.

The present volume is an outcome of the proceedings of the World Congress of the International Society for Labour and Social Security Law which took place in Santiago, Chile, in September 2012. The country reports submitted at that time have been modified and updated, and more country reports have been added. Each chapter covers the following specific topics: legal definitions; the legal basis of the right to strike; the right to call a strike; the right to participate in a strike; lawful strikes according to their purpose; procedural requirements; peace obligations; other limitations to strikes; the public sector and 'essential services'; specific emanations of strikes and other forms of industrial action; legal consequences of lawful strikes; legal consequences of unlawful strikes; dispute resolution; support of strikers; parity of parties and neutrality of the state; and strikes in practice.