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Reframing the New Deal: The Past and Future of American Labor and the Law

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Published/Copyright: February 14, 2016
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Theoretical Inquiries in Law
From the journal Theoretical Inquiries in Law Volume 17 Issue 1

This Article reinterprets the period from 1935 to 1973 as a “long exception” to the sustained pattern of legal hostility to labor organizing in the United States. While the National Labor Relations Act (Wagner Act) and the broader New Deal were once regarded as secure solutions to the “labor question” in America, in retrospect they only offered a partial, temporary, and extraordinary respite from state and corporate opposition to the collective interests of working people. The decades from the thirties through the seventies witnessed the rise and fall of union density as well as the fall and rise of inequality that stands out in contrast to the rest of American history since the industrial revolution. However, because of the extraordinary circumstances of that era (which are connected to important sociopolitical variables including the economic emergency, immigration, the state, unions, individualism, and cultural politics), the New Deal serves as a poor historical metaphor for those interested in labor’s revival. The circumstances that created the New Deal are unlikely to be repeated, thus the future of labor organizing and the law will look more like the deep and difficult past of American history prior to the 1930s than like the “modern” age of organizing and collective bargaining.

Published Online: 2016-2-14
Published in Print: 2016-2-1

© 2016 by Theoretical Inquiries in Law

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Theoretical Inquiries in Law
  2. Research Article
  3. Introduction: Labor Scholarship in an Era of Uncertainty
  4. Research Article
  5. Reframing the New Deal: The Past and Future of American Labor and the Law
  6. Research Article
  7. The Right Not to Have Rights: Posted Worker Acquiescence and the European Union Labor Rights Framework
  8. Research Article
  9. Organizing: Should the Employer Have a Say?
  10. Research Article
  11. Workplace Democracy and Democratic Worker Organizations: Notes on Worker Centers
  12. Research Article
  13. Organizing Workers in Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico: The Authoritarian-Corporatist Legacy and Old Institutional Designs in a New Context
  14. Research Article
  15. Organizing Workers in “Hybrid Systems”: Comparing Trade Union Strategies in Four Countries — Austria, Germany, Israel and the Netherlands
  16. Research Article
  17. Trade Union Ambivalence Toward Enforcement of Employment Standards as an Organizing Strategy
  18. Research Article
  19. Unionizing Subcontracted Labor
  20. Research Article
  21. The Untamed Politics of Urban Informality: “Gray Space” and Struggles for Recognition in an African City
  22. Research Article
  23. Informal Workers’ Aggregation and Law
  24. Research Article
  25. Active Industrial Citizenship of Domestic Workers: Lessons Learned from Unionizing Attempts in Israel and the United Kingdom
  26. Research Article
  27. Organizing in the Shadows: Domestic Workers in the Netherlands
https://doi.org/10.1515/til-2016-0002

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Theoretical Inquiries in Law
  2. Research Article
  3. Introduction: Labor Scholarship in an Era of Uncertainty
  4. Research Article
  5. Reframing the New Deal: The Past and Future of American Labor and the Law
  6. Research Article
  7. The Right Not to Have Rights: Posted Worker Acquiescence and the European Union Labor Rights Framework
  8. Research Article
  9. Organizing: Should the Employer Have a Say?
  10. Research Article
  11. Workplace Democracy and Democratic Worker Organizations: Notes on Worker Centers
  12. Research Article
  13. Organizing Workers in Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico: The Authoritarian-Corporatist Legacy and Old Institutional Designs in a New Context
  14. Research Article
  15. Organizing Workers in “Hybrid Systems”: Comparing Trade Union Strategies in Four Countries — Austria, Germany, Israel and the Netherlands
  16. Research Article
  17. Trade Union Ambivalence Toward Enforcement of Employment Standards as an Organizing Strategy
  18. Research Article
  19. Unionizing Subcontracted Labor
  20. Research Article
  21. The Untamed Politics of Urban Informality: “Gray Space” and Struggles for Recognition in an African City
  22. Research Article
  23. Informal Workers’ Aggregation and Law
  24. Research Article
  25. Active Industrial Citizenship of Domestic Workers: Lessons Learned from Unionizing Attempts in Israel and the United Kingdom
  26. Research Article
  27. Organizing in the Shadows: Domestic Workers in the Netherlands
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