Walter Galenson

What makes American labor unions distinctive from others in advanced Western countries is neither as simple as their wanting "more" nor as philosophical as their operating in an open-class society. Through a comprehensive analysis of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters--the largest union before the 1930s and the pioneer--Walter Galenson details the reasons for the union's success. He finds that the Carpenters survived the vicissitudes of rapid industrialization and modernization because it was a conservative, business union. From its inception in 1881, the Carpenters' union embraced the capitalist system and worked to improve productivity. This resulted in a higher wage scale, greater leisure time, use of technology to stretch construction work over the winter months, increased fringe benefits, job security during jurisdictional disputes, and more than normal advances by minorities and blacks. Galenson's book is based on a vast sampling of archival materials, including union records, diaries, minutes of local and affiliate unions, and AFL and CIO primary sources. The author blends narrative with shrewd intuitive analysis to provide an indispensable source for labor and economic historians and students of labor movements.

The First Hundred Years

The United Brotherhood of Carpenters

John T. Dunlop

Labor in the Twentieth Century provides the comparative method of reviewing labor in five advanced democratic countries. This book presents statistical series for employment, unemployment, wages, hours, and labor disputes. Organized into five chapters, this book begins with an overview of the major changes in the characteristics of both workers and their jobs that have occurred since 1990. This text then examines the social, political, and economic environment of Germany. Other chapters consider the factors that have made France exceptional, including the use of foreign manpower, the heavy labor-force participation of women, and the long period of demographic stagnation connected with low birthrates at the beginning of the 19th century. This book discusses as well the scarcity in the labor market, particularly of qualified manpower. The final chapter deals with the Westerner's conceptualization of Japanese industrialist relation. This book is a valuable resource for economists, historians, and social scientists.

Walter Galenson

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