Josiah Lambert's book succeeds at several levels, asking us to take seriously the rights and obligations once thought intrinsic to work and citizenship, especially in the context of the ever-malleable right to strike. One finds here a comprehensive history of organized labor in the United States dependent upon, and effectively situated in, an analysis of the crucial and fundamental right to strike—a right that has over time substantially changed in meaning and usefulness as a weapon in the struggle between capital and labor. This book is perfect for upper-level students in labor or political history, but is far more satisfying than such a recommendation suggests. While those new to this history will find themselves fascinated by accounts of strikes and the often violent reactions they engendered, more seasoned scholars will also be asked to think through their understanding of civil society and labor activism in a new and refreshing way. Well organized and tightly expressed, this volume should receive a wide and appreciative audience.

Lambert first offers an exciting survey of the history of American labor, but always in the context of the politics of judicial decision making and legislative reactions to powerful political and economic interests. Students new to this history will benefit from the chronological treatment of major events, organizations, and individuals that marked the first generations of labor conflict in the United States. The early uses of conspiracy statutes, the application of court injunctions, and the often frustrating and impotent application of executive power all receive close attention here, as do the unfailing efforts to suppress the activities of those who attempted to organize in their own behalf. The author then leads seamlessly to union, civic, and governmental efforts to create lasting industrial peace and to find an approach to labor struggles that might, to some minimal degree, balance the relationship between workers and management.

Still, the value of this book lies beyond the well-described treatment of the standard moments of industrial and labor history. Lambert makes his most satisfying contribution as he explains the dramatic and costly shift in political and economic power that resulted from the ever-changing conception of the political and moral basis of the right to strike. From a critical and fundamental right of citizenship based on civic republican principles, workers have found their right to strike reduced to a commercial arrangement that is at the same time practically limited and politically vulnerable. From a radical expression of the citizenship demands of free labor, the strike has become insecure, divorced from other political and cultural struggles, and subject to increasing suppression and erosion. Lost in this exchange has been the role of the strike in extending political rights of participation and representation to the workplace; the ability to challenge the often docile and acquiescent quality of free labor; and the greater social justice that can come from working people insisting upon and exercising greater economic power.

To explore this further, Lambert shifts attention away from the typical understanding of the strike as an instrument used to level the economic playing field and force employers to the bargaining table. While crucial, this use of power itself depends upon the expressive power of the strike—a power that permits workers to find decency and meaning in their experiences with mass production and other modern forms of labor. Striking workers can reclaim their human and political dignity in a context in which defiance is often very costly, while engaging in the self-governance inherent in the full citizenship of free workers. It is necessary to address these points because as Lambert makes clear, while often thought a tool for pressing demands pertaining solely to wages, benefits, and working conditions, the strike should represent much more. At a time when many understand political freedom to involve little more than the pulling of a voting lever every four or so years, this reconsideration of the nature of the strike and its implications for freedom and democracy should generate wide discussion.

To have lost this richer sense of participation is to have lost a lot. We are left with an image of striking workers as engaged in a narrow struggle over “pure-and-simple” unionism that has abandoned any notion of free workers existing not simply as factors in production but as self-governing citizens whose rights and obligations cannot be reduced to commercial arrangements alone. The advent of modern models of industrial relations has served the state by reducing civil strife and has satisfied business by leaving fundamental economic relationships unchallenged—but workers have found themselves less powerful, less certain, and, in some ways, less free. The choice to withhold labor has not been completely destroyed, of course, but the degree to which the strike could represent an efficacious expression of individual and collective self-determination has changed, perhaps beyond repair.

As he continues, Lambert describes contemporary events to demonstrate the deep costs of the shift in our understanding of the right to strike. He addresses the effects of World War II, the successful passage of the Taft-Hartley legislation, the inability to see labor as a constituent part of the broader Civil Rights struggle, the onset of costly legislation making possible permanent striker replacement, and other changes. He also challenges recent legal scholarship, addresses the role of shifting party alliances, and questions the emergence of rising presidential powers as he wends his way through these issues. Doing so, he reveals the weakened state of organized labor as it struggles to survive the increasingly feeble condition of the strike and to regain political and economic power.

One can always find a shortcoming in a work of even this density—perhaps more about other means by which organized labor has challenged capital, such as the controversial “corporate campaigns,” or a discussion of intentional ties to other social justice organizations—but that is no criticism here. Lambert presents a sophisticated and tightly structured argument, and I am certain that watching future developments in American labor will be richer for those who have read If Workers Took a Notion and considered all that the author has offered.