This is a solid, well-detailed account of the political career of Arthur J. Goldberg. A prominent and defining figure in the American labor movement, Goldberg served as Secratary of Labor under the Kennedy Administration before being named a justice to the Supreme Court. He was also ambassador to the United Nations during Johnson's presidency. Goldberg was considered one of the most important liberals in American public life in the 1960s and was a major force for reform both on and off the judicial bench. This book places Goldberg's career and its significance in relation to the social and political events of the time.
Having come of age during a period of vibrant union-centered activism, Jack Metzgar begins this book wondering how his father, a U.S> Steel shop steward in the 1950s and '60s, and so many contemporary historians could forget what this country owes to the union movement. Combining personal memoir and historical narrative, Striking Steel argues for reassessment of unionism in American life during the second half of the twentieth century and a recasting of "official memory." As he traces the history of union steelworkers after World War II, Metzgar draws on his father's powerful stories about the publishing work in the mills, stories in which time is divided between "before the union" and since. His father, Johnny Metzgar, fought ardently for workplace rules as a means of giving "the men" some control over their working conditions and protection from venal foremen. He pursued grievances until he eroded management's authority, and he badgered foremen until he established shop-floor practices that would become part of the next negotiated contract. As a passionate advocate of solidarity, he urged coworkers to stick together so that the rules were upheld and everyone could earn a decent wage. Striking Steel's pivotal event is the four-month nationwide steel strike of 1959, a landmark union victory that has been all but erased from public memory. With remarkable tenacity, union members held out for the shop-floor rules that gave them dignity in the workplace and raised their standard of living. Their victory underscored the value of sticking together and reinforced their sense that they were contributing to a general improvement in American working and living conditions. The Metzgar family's story vividly illustrates the larger narrative of how unionism lifted the fortunes and prospects of working-class families. It also offers an account of how the broad social changes of the period helped to shift the balance of power in a conflict-ridden, patriarchal household. Even if the optimism of his generation faded in the upheavals of the 1960s, Johnny Metzgar's commitment to his union and the strike itself stands as an honorable example of what a collective action can and did achieve. Jack Metzgar's Striking Steel is a stirring call to remember and renew the struggle.
Ronald W. Schatz tells the story of the team of young economists and lawyers recruited to the National War Labor Board to resolve union-management conflicts during the Second World War. The crew (including Clark Kerr, John Dunlop, Jean McKelvey, and Marvin Miller) exerted broad influence on the U.S. economy and society for the next forty years. They handled thousands of grievances and strikes. They founded academic industrial relations programs. When the 1960s student movement erupted, universities appointed them as top administrators charged with quelling the conflicts. In the 1970s, they developed systems that advanced public sector unionization and revolutionized employment conditions in Major League Baseball. Schatz argues that the Labor Board vets, who saw themselves as disinterested technocrats, were in truth utopian reformers aiming to transform the world. Beginning in the 1970s stagflation era, they faced unforeseen opposition, and the cooperative relationships they had fostered withered. Yet their protégé George Shultz used mediation techniques learned from his mentors to assist in the integration of Southern public schools, institute affirmative action in industry, and conduct Cold War negotiations with Mikhail Gorbachev.
'Tiffany shows that American decision makers who ignore the past are likely to jeopardize America's future. So persuasive is his account of the historical antagonism between steel management, labor and government that advocates of industrial policy will have to reconsider the premise of cooperation on which it is based.
Collective bargaining involves a process of negotiation between one or more unions and an employer or employers' organisation(s). The outcome is a collective agreement that defines terms of employment - typically wages, working hours and in-work benefits. The agreement affords labour protection: minimum wages, regular earnings; limits on working hours and predictable work schedules; safe working environments; parental leave and sick leave; and a fair share in the benefits of increased productivity. The International Labour Organization (ILO) Collective Agreements Recommendation 1951 (No. 91) considers, where appropriate and having regard to national practice, that measures should be taken to extend the application of all or some provisions of a collective agreement to all employers and workers included wthin the domain of the agreement. The extension of a collective agreement generalises the terms and conditions of employment, agreed between organised firms and workers, represented through their association(s) and union(s), to the non-organised firms within a sector, occupation or territory. The collection of chapters in this volume are about the extension of collective agreements as an act of public policy.
Political Science Abstracts is an annual supplement to the Political Science, Government, and Public Policy Series of The Universal Reference System, which was first published in 1967. All previous volumes are still available.
