The Elusive Search for Job Security: A Historical Inquiry into Dismissals in the US Workplace

For the majority of employees in the US and elsewhere, their job is by far their most important property; with jobs providing not only a principal source of wealth, but also being a key source of social status and individual psychological well-being. While the US political system provides extensive protection to capital, it paradoxically offers only very limited protection to labour. This lack of protection is evidenced, above all, by the fact that the protection afforded to US workers against unfair, capricious or unnecessary dismissals is amongst the weakest of all industrialised nations. The primary agenda of this book is to map out the institutional choices, which have prevented the comprehensive, European-style, regulation of dismissal in the United States; and to explore how these choices have been supported, modified and maintained against attempts by US workers to secure greater job security. This book examines the issue dismissals and job security in a roughly historical order.