Description: This book presents a fundamental reassessment of the nature of wage labor in the nineteenth century, focusing on the use of sanctions to enforce wage labor agreements. Professor Steinfeld argues that wage workers were not employees at will but were often bound to their employment by enforceable labor agreements, which employers used whenever available to manage their labor costs and supply. Modern free wage labor only came into being late in the nineteenth century, as a result of reform legislation that restricted the contract remedies employers could legally use.
Review Quotes: "...the book is a major accomplishment...It is an important work that belongs in the library of anyone studying labor history, the economic history of the nineteenth century, or modern employment and labor law in either the United States or the United Kingdom." Industrial and Labor Relations Review