Law Commons^™

Free Labor Today, James G. Pope

Rutgers Law School (Newark) Faculty Papers

During the first half of the 20th Century, the period when all of the United States’ major workers’ rights statutes were enacted, the American labor movement claimed the rights to organize and strike under the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S Constitution. Beginning in 1909, it was the official policy of the American Federation of Labor that a worker confronted with an unconstitutional injunction had an “imperative duty” to “refuse obedience and to take whatever consequences may ensue.” At a time when union institutions were as weak as they are today, every attack on workers’ rights was met with an impassioned …