The bosses' union : how employers organized to fight labor before the New Deal / / Vilja Hulden

• Record Nr.: UNINA9910838332203321
• Autore: Hulden Vilja <1977->
• Pubbl/distr/stampa: Urbana : , : University of Illinois Press, , [2023]; ©2023
• ISBN: 9780252053887; 9780252086922
• Edizione: [1st ed.]
• Descrizione fisica: 1 online resource (407 pages)
• Collana: The working class in American history
• Disciplina: 331.880973
• Soggetti: Labor unions - United States - History - 20th century; Labor unions - United States - History - 19th century; Open and closed shop - United States - History - 20th century; Open and closed shop - United States - History - 19th century; Industrial relations - United States - History - 20th century; Industrial relations - United States - History - 19th century
• Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
• Formato: Materiale a stampa
• Livello bibliografico: Monografia
• Nota di bibliografia: Includes bibliographical references and index.
• Nota di contenuto: Introduction: Who Makes the Rules? -- 1. The Invention of the Closed Shop: The NAM Weighs In on the Labor Question -- 2. The Deep History of the Closed or Union Shop -- 3. The Potential and Limitations of the Trade Agreement -- 4. The Range and Roots of Employer Positions on Labor -- 5. Employers, Unite? The Bases and Challenges of Employer Collective Action -- 6. The Battle over the State -- 7. The Battle over Public Opinion -- 8. Defending the Status Quo Ante Bellum -- 9. The Gift That Keeps on Giving: Institutionalizing the Open-Shop Ideal in the 1920s -- Coda: The Working Class and the Prerequites of Power
• Sommario/riassunto: "From the 1880s through the 1920s, American labor endured an ongoing assault on worker's rights by open shop campaigns organized by employers. Vilja Hulden delves into the decades-long effort to not only counter but discredit labor's attempts to exercise its own power. The employer-invented term closed shop was a potent rhetorical tool that shifted public opinion from concerns about inequality and ; dangerous working conditions to a belief that unions trampled an individual's right to work. As Hulden shows, employers used different methods to conduct closed-shop campaigns. Conciliators assumed a pose of benevolent cooperation while hardliners like the National Association of Manufacturers condemned the closed shop and used financial and social networks to lobby government, purchase newspaper space, and place sympathizers in politics. Employers did not always get what they wanted. But their superior ability to exercise power strengthened an anti-labor agenda that showed a remarkable consistency in its tactics and goals over a fifty-year period"--