The major points of development in government policy toward trade unionism and collective bargaining are familiar to every teacher and student of American labor history. The task of explaining these events, however, remains perplexing, since they have followed no apparent consistency of relationship with various economic, political, and social variables. In this essay, the author re-examines the historical experience in an effort to identify variables of sufficient generality to account for the timing and character of significant developments in the law of labor relations in the United States. Whether the law advanced or inhibited the objectives of organized labor, he contends, ultimately was the "resultant of the prevailing ideology of property rights and the degree of access to political power enjoyed by private power blocs." In developing this thesis, the author also considers and evaluates the concept of "countervailing power" as an alternative key to explaining the changes in the nature of public intervention in labor-management relations. (Author's abstract courtesy EBSCO.)
