Institutions and political change: Working-class formation in England and the United States, 1820–1896

Labor Historysymposium: Political repression of the American labor movement during its formative years – a comparative perspective

“…Law professor William Forbath, focusing especially upon anti-union/strike court injunctions in the United States, reached a virtually identical conclusion in a 1991 article: he declared that 'the key reasons' for the diverging orientations of the American and English labor movements by World War I were could be found 'not in the sociology of the working class or labor movements' but rather in the 'character of the state and polity and the lessons trade unionists drew from experiences in those arenas'. 18 Several industry studies also support the 'it did happen here' argument. Thus, in a 1977 article James Holt concluded that the primary explanation why the British steel industry was heavily unionized in 1914 while the American steel industry was virtually union-free was that American employers and the American state proved far more hostile and repressive than did the British, with the turning point the employer-government alliance which destroyed American unionization in steel (which in 1890s had been stronger than in Britain) in the famous 1982 Homestead, Pennsylvania strike (and which was to arise again in even more brutal fashion in the 1919 steel strike, which along with the 1894 Pullman strike, similarly crushed by employer-governmental repression, was until then the most important strike in American history).…”

Reflexões sobre as regras do impedimento e seus impactos sobre a democracia: Brasil, Estados Unidos e Inglaterra em perspectiva comparada

“…Therefore, the institutions form political spaces with selective capacities, which can both stimulate interests and amplify political projects of specific groups and provide barriers to their realization (HATTAM, 1992). An institution, be it the federal constitution, a forum, a complementary law, a decisionmaking regulation or federative regimes, has singular characteristics, intentional or not, that favor or hinder the expansion of specific political interests (IMMERGUT, 1992).…”

“Striking Deaths” at their Roots: Assaying the Social Determinants of Extreme Labor-Management Violence in US Labor History—1877–1947

“…The most prominent response to what came to be known as "the labor question," or the problematization of labor, was a desire among many employers and prominent citizens to hone the means of repression (Isaac 2002;Reinders 1977;Shefter 1986). The judiciary, meanwhile, constituted the most prominent government actors, as they sought to define and enforce particular forms and standards of labor protests and behavior (see Hattam 1992;McCammon 1993a).…”

“… 5. State and federal judges between the years 1880 and 1932 issued injunctions against strikes for not only violence against persons and property, but also the mere act of picketing, which some judges deemed immanently if not inherently violent (Hattam 1992: 139; Petro 1978: 17). …”