Law Commons^™

The Striking Success Of The National Labor Relations Act, Michael L. Wachter

All Faculty Scholarship

Although often viewed as a dismal failure, the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) has been remarkably successful. While the decline in private sector unionization since the 1950s is typically viewed as a symbol of this failure, the NLRA has achieved its most important goal: industrial peace.

Before the NLRA and the 1947 Taft-Hartley Amendments, our industrial relations system gave rise to frequent and violent strikes that threatened the nation’s stability. For example, in the late 1870s, the Great Railroad Strike spread throughout a number of major cities. In Pittsburg alone, strikes claimed 24 lives, nearly 80 buildings, and over 2,000 …

Antitrust Energy, D. Daniel Sokol, Barak Orbach

UF Law Faculty Publications

Marking the centennial anniversary of Standard Oil Co. v. United States, we argue that much of the critique of antitrust enforcement and the skepticism about its social significance suffer from “Nirvana fallacy” — comparing existing and feasible policies to ideal normative policies, and concluding that the existing and feasible ones are inherently inefficient because of their imperfections. Antitrust law and policy have always been and will always be imperfect. However, they are alive and kicking. The antitrust discipline is vibrant, evolving, and global. This essay introduces a number of important innovations in scholarship related to Standard Oil and its modern …

Contrasts In Innovation: Pittsburgh Then And Now, Michael J. Madison

Book Chapters

Assessments of the relationship among law, innovation, and economic growth often begin with one or more propositions of law or law practice and predict how changes might affect innovation or business practice. This approach is problematic when applied to questions of regional economic development, because historic and contemporary local conditions vary considerably. This paper takes a different tack. It takes a snapshot of one recovering post-industrial economy, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. For most of the 20th century, Pittsburgh's steelmakers were leading examples worldwide of American economic prowess. Pittsburgh was so vibrant with industry that a late 19th century travel writer …