EH.Net Abstracts in Economic History

                EHS Abstract Submission
                    (c) 1996 EH.Net
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              Name:  Joseph P. Ferrie
             Email:  ferrie at nwu.edu
       Institution:  Dept of Economics, Northwestern
 
         Co-author:  Janet Currie, Dept of Economics, UCLA, CA 90024
 
             Title:  The Law and Labor Strife in the U.S., 1881-1894
 
  Internet Address
of abstracted work:  http://www.econ.nwu.edu/faculty/ferrie
 
           By mail:  
                     Joseph P. Ferrie
                     Department of Economics
                     Northwestern University
                     Evanston, IL 60208-2600, USA
 
          Language:  English
 
          Abstract:
   Economic models of disputes often assume that the rules of the
game are well understood, and that parties know the possible
consequences of their actions.	In this paper we show the
apparently unintended consequences of state-level legal
innovations governing labor disputes that took place in the late
1800s.	This was a period of legal ferment in which labor and
capital actively lobbied state governments for changes in the
rules governing labor disputes.  We assume that parties acted in
what they believed was their own best interest, so that when
organized labor lobbied for legal changes such as the abolition
of the blacklist, it was because labor believed that these
institutional changes would benefit its constituents.  Similarly,
we assume that employers who applauded the use of the injunction
against striking workers did so because they thought that the
development of this legal instrument would tilt negotiations in
their favor.  The cross-state heterogeneity in the legal
environment governing labor disputes at the end of the nineteenth
century provides a unique opportunity to investigate the effects
of the law.  We use a rich source of data about more than 12,000
disputes that took place between 1881 and 1894 to show that many
of the legal changes we examine had effects that were unlikely to
have been anticipated by their proponents.  This experience
provides a rationale for labor's abandonment of direct political
action in favor of "business unionism" at the end of the
nineteenth century, and for the eventual decline in the use of
the injunction.  

 
Bibliography:  Ferrie, Joseph. "The Law and Labor Strife in the 
U.S., 1881-1894." NBER Historical Factors in Long Run Growth,
Working Paper #5368, 1995.
 
Subject:  T
Geographical Area:  7
Country/Region:  USA
Time Period:  7