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Labor and the Government: A Comparative Historical Perspective

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 May 2010

Gaston V. Rimlinger
Gaston V. Rimlinger
Affiliation:
Rice University
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Abstract

This article compares the development of the workers' right to organize and bargain collectively in England, France, and the U.S. Starting with a common repressive policy, each country followed a different path toward establishing the workers' rights. The main ultimate difference lies in the extent to which the state became involved in industrial relations. In England the state remained aloof after securing very broad legal rights of collective action. The workers were left to do their own battling. In France the state came to look upon collective agreements as an aspect of public policy and became the dominant partner in labor negotiations. The American pattern lies in between: state protection extends to procedural but not to substantive issues.

Type
Papers Presented at the Thirty-Sixth Annual Meeting of the Economic History Association
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 37 , Issue 1 , March 1977 , pp. 210 - 225
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1977

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References

1 See for instance Sidney and Beatrice Webb, The History of Trade Unionism, (new ed.; London, 1920), pp. 2 ff.; Milne-Bailey, W., Trade Unions and the State (London, 1935), pp. 169–70Google Scholar; Levasseur, Emile, Histoire des classes ouvrières avant 1789, (2nd ed.; Paris, 1900), Vol. I, 314, 599Google Scholar; Hauser, Henri, Ouvriers du temps passé (Paris, 1927), pp. 166–67.Google Scholar

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