DISORGANIZING AND REORGANIZING CONFLICT - OUTCOMES OF THE STATES LEGAL REGULATION OF THE STRIKE SINCE THE WAGNER ACT

Through an examination of U.S. federal labor law's impact on strikes since the Wagner Act, this article evaluates three theories of the state in capitalist society: the structuralist class, political class, and state-centered theories. Minimal support is found for the statist position that suggests that state actors will pursue their own agendas when they have the bureaucratic capacities to do so, when elections are competitive, or during recession and war. The results do suggest that both structuralist class and political class perspectives are useful in understanding the operation of law. Since passage of the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947, the law has selectively restricted those strikes that pose significant challenges to employer workplace authority, which supports the structuralist perspective. However, the law appears not to have had these selective effects until after more militant factions were removed from the labor movement, suggesting support for the political class theory. The article calls for a synthesis of the two class theories.