From Collective Bargaining to Collective Begging

How Public Employees Win and Lose the Right to Bargain

By: Dominic D. Wells

Narrated by: Gary Roelofs

How do public employees win and lose their collective bargaining rights? And how can public sector labor unions protect those rights? These are the questions answered in From Collective Bargaining to Collective Begging. Dominic Wells takes a mixed-methods approach and uses more than five decades of state-level data to analyze the expansion and restriction of rights.

Wells identifies the factors that led states to expand collective bargaining rights to public employees, and the conditions under which public employee labor unions can defend against unfavorable state legislation. He presents case studies and coalition strategies from Ohio and Wisconsin to demonstrate how labor unions failed to protect their rights in one state and succeeded in another.

From Collective Bargaining to Collective Begging also provides a comprehensive quantitative analysis of the economic, political, and cultural factors that both led states to adopt policies that reduced the obstacles to unionization and also led other states to adopt policies that increased the difficulty to form and maintain a labor union. In his conclusion, Wells suggests the path forward for public sector labor unions and what policies need to be implemented to improve employee labor relations.

The book is published by Temple University Press. The audiobook is published by University Press Audiobooks.

©2021 Temple University - Of The Commonwealth System of Higher Education (P)2021 Redwood Audiobooks

Critic reviews

"An informed and needed road map for where public-sector trade unions and practitioners should be heading to make gains in public policy...." (ILR Review)

"In this engaging account, Dominic Wells sheds new light on the explosive battles over public sector unionism that inflamed Wisconsin, Ohio, and the courts...." (Joseph A. McCartin, Georgetown University)

"This is a must-read for labor scholars and activists alike." (Leslie K. Finger, University of North Texas)