Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
  1. Home
  2. Books
  3. The Workplace Constitution from the New Deal to the New Right
  • Cited by 21
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:
October 2014
Print publication year:
2014
Online ISBN:
9781139839358
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139839358
Subjects:
Legal History, Law, Regional and World History: General Interest, History, Twentieth Century American History
Series:
Studies in Legal History
  • 34.99 (USD)
    Digital access for individuals
    (PDF download and/or read online)
    Add to cart
    Added to cart
    Digital access for individuals
    (PDF download and/or read online)
    View cart
  • Export citation
  • Buy a print copy
  • Recommend to librarian
Information

Book description

Today, most Americans lack constitutional rights on the job. Instead of enjoying free speech or privacy, they can be fired for almost any reason or no reason at all. This book uses history to explain why. It takes readers back to the 1930s and 1940s when advocates across the political spectrum - labor leaders, civil rights advocates and conservatives opposed to government regulation - set out to enshrine constitutional rights in the workplace. The book tells their interlocking stories of fighting for constitutional protections for American workers, recovers their surprising successes, explains their ultimate failure, and helps readers assess this outcome.

Reviews

'The Workplace Constitution from the New Deal to the New Right is both ambitious and important - it moves across time and among a variety of individuals, organizations, and government entities, and it utilizes a wide range of archival material - all of keen interest to historians, legal scholars, and political scientists alike. Lee’s formidable intelligence gives us new insights, as well as historical and historiographical surprises.'

Risa L. Goluboff - John Allan Love Professor of Law and Justice Thurgood Marshall Distinguished Professor of Law, University of Virginia

'Sophia Lee brilliantly pairs her analysis of the civil rights movement with the rise of the right-to-work movement and the ‘union-avoidance’ industry. She also matches her fine history of the state action theory with an equally persuasive argument that administrative agencies have been a fruitful source of constitutional visions and versions. This beautifully written book represents deep and broad research and entirely original analysis. I know of nothing like it.'

Laura Kalman - University of California, Santa Barbara

'Sophia Lee’s The Workplace Constitution from the New Deal to the New Right is one of the most insightful and provocative studies of the bifurcated matrix of laws and court rulings that govern the American work regime. Deploying a marvellous talent as narrative historian, Lee demonstrates that the attempt to construct a labor relations regime that simultaneously protects the rights of racial minorities proved an enormously vexing and contentious project, one standing close to the heart of American politics for more than half a century.'

Nelson Lichtenstein - MacArthur Foundation Professor in History, University of California, Santa Barbara

'A superb and compelling account of the long-running quest for constitutional rights in the workplace since the 1930s. Relying on extensive archival research, Lee offers two intertwined legal stories that enrich but also complicate our vision of twentieth-century political history.'

Jean-Christian Vinel Source: The American Historical Review

'A nuanced narrative history of 1930s–1980s campaigns to extend constitutional rights to private-sector workers both inside and outside labor unions, and to thereby create what Lee calls a 'workplace constitution' … provides a rich history of conservatives’ legal theories of government power over the workplace - from the open shop movement to opposition to affirmative action … her focus on administrative agencies reframes histories of court decisions and extends the history of fair employment litigation well past the 1940s era …'

Trevor Griffey Source: The Journal of American History

'Lee’s magnificent book interweaves the histories of the civil rights and right-to-work movements … will certainly spark further inquiry by students and scholars of civil rights, labor, constitutional law, conservatism, and the administrative state.'

Deborah Dinner Source: Law and History Review

'A gripping and richly illuminating history of the passionate and partly successful post-New Deal litigation battles to expand workers’ constitutional rights and the scope of state action in the workplace.'

Cynthia Estlund Source: Texas Law Review

Refine List

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

Contents

Contents

Metrics

Altmetric attention score

Full text views

Total number of HTML views: 0
Total number of PDF views: 0 *
Loading metrics...

Book summary page views

Total views: 0 *
Loading metrics...

* Views captured on Cambridge Core between #date#. This data will be updated every 24 hours.

Usage data cannot currently be displayed.