A political, legal, intellectual, and social history of employment in
America
In the present age of temp work, telecommuting, and outsourcing,
millions of workers in the United States find themselves excluded from
the category of employee--a crucial distinction that would otherwise
permit unionization and collective bargaining. Tracing the history of
the term since its entry into the public lexicon in the nineteenth
century, Jean-Christian Vinel demonstrates that the legal definition of
employee has always been politically contested and deeply affected by
competing claims on the part of business and labor. Unique in the
Western world, American labor law is premised on the notion that no man
can serve two masters--workers owe loyalty to their employer, which in
many cases is incompatible with union membership.
The Employee: A Political History historicizes this American exception
to international standards of rights and liberties at work, revealing a
little known part of the business struggle against the New Deal. Early
on, progressives and liberals developed a labor regime that, intending
to restore amicable relations between employer and employee, sought to
include as many workers as possible in the latter category. But in the
1940s this language of social harmony met with increasing resistance
from businessmen, who pressed their interests in Congress and the
federal courts, pushing for an ever-narrower definition of employee that
excluded groups such as foremen, supervisors, and knowledge workers. A
cultural and political history of American business and law, The
Employee sheds historical light on contemporary struggles for economic
democracy and political power in the workplace.
