At the opening of the twentieth century, labor strife repeatedly racked the nation. Union organization and collective bargaining briefly looked like a promising avenue to stability. But both employers and many middle-class observers remained wary of unions exercising independent power. Vilja Hulden reveals how this tension provided the opening for pro-business organizations to shift public attention from concerns about inequality and dangerous working conditions to a belief that unions trampled on an individual's right to work. Inventing the term closed shop, employers mounted what they called an open-shop campaign to undermine union demands that workers at unionized workplaces join the union. Employer organizations lobbied Congress to resist labor's proposals as tyrannical, brought court cases to taint labor's tactics as illegal, and influenced newspaper coverage of unions. While employers were not a monolith nor all-powerful, they generally agreed that unions were a nuisance. Employers successfully leveraged money and connections to create perceptions of organized labor that still echo in our discussions of worker rights.
Vilja Hulden is a teaching assistant professor at the University of Colorado Boulder.
Acknowledgments Introduction Chapter 1. The Invention of the Closed Shop: The NAM Weighs In on the Labor Question Chapter 2. The Deep History of the Closed or Union Shop Chapter 3. The Potential and Limitations of the Trade Agreement Chapter 4. The Range and Roots of Employer Positions on Labor Chapter 5. Employers, Unite? The Bases and Challenges of Employer Collective Action Chapter 6. The Battle over the State Chapter 7. The Battle over Public Opinion Chapter 8. Defending the Status Quo Ante Bellum Chapter 9. The Gift That Keeps on Giving: Institutionalizing the Open-Shop Ideal in the 1920s Coda: The Working Class and the Prerequisites of Power Abbreviations A Note on Sources and Methods Notes Index
"With keen analysis and vivid prose, Vilja Hulden brilliantly illuminates how U.S. employers fought furiously to undermine unions and blunt demands for workplace democracy in the early twentieth century, creating a warped legacy that still haunts our labor relations and diminishes our politics. This powerfully argued book is essential reading for anyone who wishes to understand the long historical roots of today's reawakened fights for worker justice."--Joseph A. McCartin, author of Collision Course: Ronald Reagan, the Air Traffic Controllers, and the Strike that Changed America
