Public Workers: Government Employee Unions, the Law, and the State, 1900-1962 (ILR Press books)

Slater analyzes the legal and historical origins of government employee unions and compares them with the private sector experience.... Slater concludes with a comparison of the public and private models. He suggests that employer opposition to workers' organizing activities in the private sector explains much of the divergence in membership levels. Overall, the book is a well-researched contribution to the study of U.S. labor history.

Slater produces a rich examination of five critical episodes in the history of mid-twentieth century public labor relations, and, in doing so, demonstrates the complex intersection of law, work, social movements, and the political process.... Slater successfully bridges the fields of legal and labor history to present a lucid and compelling thesis about the importance of law for union effectiveness, while also paying careful attention to the vital importance of the social movement organizing process itself.

Joseph Slater's book makes a unique contribution to U.S. labor historiography: to date, no other book combines the tale of public employee unionization with an analysis of the unfolding law of public sector organizing. Slater makes a strong case for the failure of scholars in both labor and legal history to take seriously the experience of public employees and their unions. Additionally, Slater's choice of public employees as his subject allows him to offer thought-provoking speculations on such recurrent issues as the nature and extent of American 'exceptionalism' and the meaning of class: as he shows, such issues take on very different and unexpected colorations when viewed through the perspective of public sector workers.

Joseph Slater's illuminating book traces the legal status of public sector unions from the Boston police strike of 1919 to the first comprehensive state bargaining law passed in Wisconsin in 1962. He dissects the arguments for and against extending the rights already won by other workers during this era into the public sector and demonstrates that the question was ultimately resolved on the ground as the unionization of government workers became a reality that lawmakers could not ignore. With over 40 percent of today's union members working for governments, this study of the struggles that laid the 'foundation for the stunning rise of public sector unions in the past forty years' is a must read for anyone interested in the labor movement today.

Thoroughly researched, clearly written, devoid of needless jargon, and soundly organized, Public Workers provides a broader and more historically informed perspective on public employee unionism than any other book. Joseph E. Slater's formal training in the law enables him to write about the legal aspects of the history of public employee unionism with insight and subtlety, shedding light on how the law shaped the history of public employee unionism and why such unions proved exceedingly active politically.