The right to strike in American political development: Labor, the state, and social policy

This dissertation defends the thesis that the rise of modern American liberalism and the modern American liberal state transformed the right to strike from a citizenship right, founded upon civic republican principles, into a conditional commercial right based upon modern liberal precepts. Before this transformation, labor leaders and social reformers supported a robust right to strike as essential for the citizenship of working Americans, and for the defense of republican institutions. The evolution of the early American republic into the new American state challenged this conception of the right to strike, and eventually recast it to conform with the principle of voluntarism and a narrow conception of free collective bargaining. Modern American liberal support remains ambivalent, and lacks a stalwart commitment to this right. The right to strike remains a fundamentally contested right in the United States today.; The dissertation takes a state-centered approach to understanding the evolution of the right to strike. I dispute Hattam and Forbath, who argue that the judiciary was the primary branch of government that shaped the modern labor movement. I argue instead that the emergence of the new American state during a period of intense industrial conflict was crucial for the evolution of the modern liberal right to strike. In particular, the presidency played a primary role in this development.; The National Labor Relations Act now affirms and protects the right to strike, but this affirmation remains constrained and ambivalent. Since 1947, concerted activity has become largely disengaged from social policy and social reform. In addition, equivocal support for the right to strike has contributed to increasing legal limits on this right.; Following Sandel and Glendon, I argue that modern liberal discourse cannot provide a robust defense of the right to strike, because modern liberalism provides an inadequate theory of justice, and an insufficient concept of citizenship. I propose treating the right to strike as a citizenship right, and draw upon Shklar's argument that employment rights are an essential component of American citizenship. Retrieval of the civic republican strand in American political thought would provide a firmer basis for this right.