ABSTRACT
Labor recruiters, called “slavers,” lured young women into the factories and mills with all sorts of deceptions. In that fashion, the cost of labor was always bid down, the dignity of labor was degraded, and the rights of women violated. Most labor historians choose to ignore what was probably the real impetus to form the CIO and to pass the New Deal’s labor protections: the formation of Unemployment Committees and councils in practically every major city in the United States during the late 1920s and early 1930s. The history of labor law in the post-World War II period has been one of retreat from positions of the Wagner Act. Reagan’s appointments to the National Labor Relations Board were signals that free trade unions have no claim to legitimacy in his labor relations policy. Cooperation must come as a total package in the form of an economic and social contract, inside and outside the workplace.
