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This chapter focuses on Mary Dublin Keyserling and Leon Keyserling, who were particularly prominent targets for the anticommunist right from 1940 through the mid-1960s. His first claim to fame was drafting the National Labor Relations Act, and her career began as a consumer activist, so they aptly represent the movements whose successes mobilized anticommunist crusaders. The Keyserlings were “purchasing-power progressives” who argued that raising working-class living standards was essential for a healthy economy and a healthy democracy. They both experienced long, bruising loyalty investigations and resigned in 1953 during the transition to the Eisenhower administration. Leon reemerged as an economic adviser to the Democratic National Committee and the AFL-CIO in the late 1950s and then as an ally of the centrist Democrat Hubert Humphrey. In 1964, President Lyndon Johnson appointed Mary head of the U.S. Women's Bureau, over the objections of congressional conservatives who revived the old disloyalty allegations.

Labor unions play a vital role in ensuring an equitable distribution of wealth by increasing the share of corporate profits that go to workers. The decline in union membership and influence in the United States thus correlates with rising income inequality. American unions have struggled to reconcile an agenda of economic justice for the working class with a more pragmatic orientation that emphasizes gains for groups of workers on a contract-by-contract basis. The dominance of the latter approach, compounded by legislative and judicial hostility to group action by workers, has resulted in the public perception of unions as self-interested special interest groups. Yet embedded within historical and modern American unionism is a powerful ideological impulse toward social and economic reform. That impulse is constrained, however, by an anachronistic labor law. A new legal regime that provides breathing space for evolving change agents is essential to restore labor’s countervailing power.

This chapter discusses the legislative struggles between the election of 1924 and the passage of the Railway Labor Act (RLA) in May 1926, which laid important legal framework for the National Labor Relations Act of 1935. The elections of 1924 thus brought the first stage of railroad labor's battle to bring the Railroad Labor Board to a close. The unions presented the Howell-Barkley Bill to Congress and forced the GOP to recognize the need to amend the Transportation Act. Union leaders continued to work behind the scenes to strengthen their position. By remaining politically active, and even threatening to some, the brotherhoods assured themselves a voice in the creation of new legislation.

This chapter reviews Anglo-American labor history to illustrate that the right to refuse unsafe work has been a struggle to decide who is empowered to define it. The right to refuse was protected as early as the Jellico Agreement of 1893, which covered eight Appalachian mines and was at the time “one of the most advanced agreements of any miners in the country.” It allowed a miner “to refuse to work if he thought the mine was dangerous through failure of the bosses to supply enough support timber.” After the enactment of the U.S. National Labor Relations Act of 1935 (the Wagner Act) and adoption of Wagner Act principles in Canada in the 1940s, the right to refuse unsafe work gained ground as a viable subject of collective bargaining in North America. Collective labor agreements would become the only way to circumvent the strict common laws on the termination of employment that had commodified workers in the United States and Canada.

This chapter explains how worker centers can deal with forces in society that would like to harm or destroy them. It first highlights the important lessons that can be learned from the experience of ACORN, a community organizing voice for low-income families that had to contend with right-wing forces. It then discusses current attacks against worker centers, including those by the website called Worker Center Watch and goes on to consider the issue of 501c3 tax exemption leveled against worker centers, along with the Internal Revenue Service and Department of Labor definitions and requirements relevant to the problem. It also discusses the importance of the National Labor Relations Act for worker center organizers; the strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPP) filed against worker centers; and other areas where worker centers may be vulnerable and should shore up their operations. Finally, the chapter looks at the main opposition to bills strengthening enforcement against wage theft and outlines steps for training worker center staff and volunteers in laws and areas of concern.

This chapter examines out-of-the-ordinary circumstances in which accommodation arises as an issue. It first considers the case of Kimberly Cloutier, who sued Costco over dress code before turning to Charan Singh Kalsi's religious discrimination lawsuit against the New York City Transit Authority. It then discusses two other court cases involving George Daniels and Robert Roesser, along with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's guidelines on accommodation. It also assesses the relevant provisions of the National Labor Relations Act regarding the payment of union dues by workers holding religious convictions that oppose union activities. It suggests that a solution for workers with religious convictions that oppose labor unions is to pay to charitable institutions what other workers pay to their union as dues.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in 1911 made labor activists keenly aware of the need for regulatory labor legislation as well as strikes and street protests. This chapter traces the evolving friendship of Newman and Schneiderman with Frances Perkins, Eleanor Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt and argues that these Jewish immigrant Socialist garment workers helped shape the 20^th century regulatory state and social safety net.

This chapter reviews Anglo-American labor history to illustrate that the right to refuse unsafe work has been a struggle to decide who is empowered to define it. The right to refuse was protected as early as the Jellico Agreement of 1893, which covered eight Appalachian mines and was at the time “one of the most advanced agreements of any miners in the country.” It allowed a miner “to refuse to work if he thought the mine was dangerous through failure of the bosses to supply enough support timber.” After the enactment of the U.S. National Labor Relations Act of 1935 (the Wagner Act) and adoption of Wagner Act principles in Canada in the 1940s, the right to refuse unsafe work gained ground as a viable subject of collective bargaining in North America. Collective labor agreements would become the only way to circumvent the strict common laws on the termination of employment that had commodified workers in the United States and Canada.

This chapter picks up the story in the wake of Franklin D. Roosevelt's veto, carrying it forward through eventual Bonus payment to the presidential election of 1936. Roosevelt used his veto of the Bonus as a springboard for the special legislative program of the “Second” New Deal, the landmark session that included the passing of the Social Security Act and the National Labor Relations Act. The Bonus passed over another Roosevelt veto in 1936, though it may well have been the most successful piece of “second” New Deal legislation. When veterans began receiving payments in June, nearly $2 billion flowed into the national economy, making 1936 the best economic year since the Crash. This fiscal stimulus boosted the economy just in time for the 1936 election. The resolution of the Bonus, therefore, contributed significantly to Roosevelt's electoral landslide that November and the political triumph of the New Deal.