Power and Politics in Labor Legislation by Alan K. McAdamsReview by: W. B. CunninghamThe Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science / Revue canadienne d'Economique etde Science politique, Vol. 31, No. 1 (Feb., 1965), pp. 148-149Published by: Wiley on behalf of Canadian Economics AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/139648 .

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148

On this matter of sources, Kubek has listed an awe-inspiring number of entries-all, it may be noted, works in English. Quite apart from the fact that the bibliography is needlessly padded (e.g., the majority of periodicals and newspapers cited under a separate heading are duplicated in a section headed "<Articles"), the bulk of Kubek's evidence has been culled from the statements and writings of disaffected officials and political figures, from suspect Com- munist turncoats and from an extremely selective reading of the voluminous reports produced by Congressional Committees and executive departments of the government. Incidentally, in a number of instances in the bibliography, materials are listed in the alphabetical order by Chinese given names (e.g., "Kai-shek, Chiang") rather than by surnames: which seems to be another indication that Kubek assumes one need not know anything about things Chinese-customs or history-in order to understand the dilemmas facing the United States in its dealings with China.

One is obliged to read a book of this kind for the same reason one is obliged to read Marxist polemical literature. It assists one to identify, define, and comprehend the motivations and techniques of those whose involvement leads them to subvert historical objectivity. In any event, whatever else it may be, Kubek's study cannot be accepted as history in the usual academic sense.

JACK J. GERSON University of Toronto

Power and Politics in Labor Legislation. By ALAN K. MCADAMS. New York: Columbia University Press [Toronto: Copp Clark]. 1964. Pp. xiv, 346. $7.50.

In the November, 1958, Congressional elections in the United States the Democratic party won a lop-sided victory. The party increased its majority in the Senate from 4 to 30, and in the House of Representatives from 31 to 130, in an election that was a heavy blow to the Republicans and the Eisenhower administration. The voters elected about 70 per cent of the candidates backed by the AFL-CIO.

Organized labour was jubilant. Legislative power is important in the con- tinuing power struggle with organized capital. The revelations of the McClellan Committee, commonly called the Labor Rackets Committee, had severely tarnished the public image of labour unions. Reform legislation of some kind seemed to be a political necessity. Fortunately, so the labour leaders thought, the results of the 1958 elections meant that labour influence on the Eighty- sixth Congress would ensure that any labour reform measures would not be oppressive and punitive. Yet less than a year later Congress passed the Labor- Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (the Landrum-Griffin Act).

Most union leaders regarded the Act as anti-labour. The question the author of this book poses, and answers, is how the Eighty-sixth Congress passed a law so out of character with what was expected. By giving a detailed descrip- tion and analysis of the competing proposals for labour reform; of the objec- tives, strategy, and tactics of the interested pressure groups and individuals; and of the fate of the proposals in the numerous stages of the legislative procedure, Professor McAdams has effectively used a controversial law as a vehicle for informing his readers how a bill becomes a law in the United

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Reviews of Books / Comptes rendus 149

States. In brief, the book examines the conception and the gestation period (including the labour pains) that preceded the birth of this labour reform legislation.

Some of the significant points that emerge from this study are not as well known as they should be. The politicians and the leaders of labour and manage- ment were aware of the public demand that something should be done to reform the internal operations of labour unions. But the legislative battle, while fought in the name of labour reform, actually "centered on those ques- tions related directly to the balance of power between labor and management, the direction and degree of changes to the Taft-Hartley Act." (p. 17) The conflict often bore little relation to the nominal issue of internal union reform. Labour leaders, recognizing and accepting that there had to be some kind of a reform bill and over-estimating their political power, attempted to sweeten the bill by having some desired amendments to the Taft-Hartley Act included. The reaction of management, ably assisted by the White House, was "an all-out effort to push management-backed provisions through under the guise of reform." (p. 227) The unions were defeated in the game they chose to play.

The formal merger of the AFL and CIO in 1955 led to fears and cries of labour monopoly. This book reveals how false is the widely-held image of the power of organized labour. No one can deny that organized labour possesses both economic and political power. But this power is not wielded by any unified, monolithic, single-minded, central organization. On this matter of union power McAdams even suggests that labour itself "had become intoxi- cated by the heavy liquor of management propaganda," whereas the "most striking thing about the labor interest group was its very lack of power, its inability to achieve its will once it became committed to reform legislation." (p. 270)

-McAdam's major thesis is "that the public, in ways which were sometimes direct and sometimes indirect, decided the outcome of the battle over labor reform legislation in 1959." (p. vii) If the reader is not overly concerned about the vagueness of the variable called "the public," he may accept McAdam's conclusion that "the public exerted the crucial influence" in the passage of legislation that was influenced by "a vast array of personalities, forces, and events." (p. 279) Or the reader may, if he wishes, reach the conclusion that: "The border line between the power of interest groups and the power of the general public is indeed fuzzy, especially in light of the interaction of the two groups. . ." (p. 7, n. 3) A refusal to accept the author's main conclusion subtracts nothing from the value of the book. It is a valuable account of how a bill became law.

W. B. CUNNINGHAM Mount Allison University

Congress and the Court: A Case Study in the American Political Process. By WALTER F. MuRPHr. Chicago: University of Chicago Press [Toronto: Uni- versity of Toronto Press]. 1962. Pp. xi, 308. $6.95.

Canadian political scientists interested in American government will be fami- liar with the ever-increasing attention being paid by their American colleagues

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