{"product_id":"9781501707476","title":"Public Workers: Government Employee Unions, the Law, and the State, 1900-1962","description":"\u003cp\u003eFrom the dawn of the twentieth century to the early 1960s, public-sector unions generally had no legal right to strike, bargain, or arbitrate, and government workers could be fired simply for joining a union. \u003cem\u003ePublic Workers \u003c\/em\u003eis the first book to analyze why public-sector labor law evolved as it did, separate from and much more restrictive than private-sector labor law, and what effect this law had on public-sector unions, organized labor as a whole, and by extension all of American politics. Joseph E. Slater shows how public-sector unions survived, represented their members, and set the stage for the most remarkable growth of worker organization in American history. Slater examines the battles of public-sector unions in the workplace, courts, and political arena, from the infamous Boston police strike of 1919, to teachers in Seattle fighting a yellow-dog rule, to the BSEIU in the 1930s representing public-sector janitors, to the fate of the powerful Transit Workers Union after New York City purchased the subways, to the long struggle by AFSCME that produced the nation's first public-sector labor law in Wisconsin in 1959. Slater introduces readers to a determined and often-ignored segment of the union movement and expands our knowledge of working men and women, the institutions they formed, and the organizational obstacles they faced.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Cornell University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47127166484720,"sku":"9781501707476","price":18.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781501707476_p0.jpg?v=1763707618","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781501707476","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}