{"product_id":"9780801455872","title":"The Origins of Right to Work: Antilabor Democracy in Nineteenth-Century Chicago","description":"\u003cp\u003e “Right to work” states weaken collective bargaining rights and limit the ability of unions to effectively advocate on behalf of workers. As more and more states consider enacting right-to-work laws, observers trace the contemporary attack on organized labor to the 1980s and the Reagan era. In \u003cem\u003eThe Origins of Right to Work\u003c\/em\u003e, however, Cedric de Leon contends that this antagonism began a century earlier with the Northern victory in the U.S. Civil War, when the political establishment revised the English common-law doctrine of conspiracy to equate collective bargaining with the enslavement of free white men. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn doing so, de Leon connects past and present, raising critical questions that address pressing social issues. Drawing on the changing relationship between political parties and workers in nineteenth-century Chicago, de Leon concludes that if workers’ collective rights are to be preserved in a global economy, workers must chart a course of political independence and overcome long-standing racial and ethnic divisions.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Cornell University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47078227738864,"sku":"9780801455872","price":21.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9780801455872_p0.jpg?v=1763725865","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9780801455872","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}