ABSTRACT
The scourge of working people since their unfettering from the feudal absolutism of the employer in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, has been the threat of unemployment. During the period between the last two great wars and especially since the depression of the thirties, countering depressions and recessions of the economic cycle has preoccupied unions and governments alike. Achieving and sustaining full or high levels of employment has been the articulated morality and official aim of virtually all public policy. Unions have fought bitterly to protect workers from the endemic recessions of the free-market system.
