eBook

Bound by Our Constitution

Hart, Vivien

1994

Overview

What difference does a written constitution make to public policy? How have women workers fared in a nation bound by constitutional principles, compared with those not covered by formal, written guarantees of fair procedure or equitable outcome? To investigate these questions, Vivien Hart traces the evolution of minimum wage policies in the United States and Britain from their common origins in women's politics around 1900 to their divergent outcomes in our day. She argues, contrary to common wisdom, that the advantage has been with the American constitutional system rather than the British. Basing her analysis on primary research, Hart reconstructs legal strategies and policy decisions that revolved around the recognition of women as workers and the public definition of gender roles. Contrasting seismic shifts and expansion in American minimum wage policy with indifference and eventual abolition in Britain, she challenges preconceptions about the constraints of American constitutionalism versus British flexibility. Though constitutional requirements did block and frustrate women's attempts to gain fair wages, they also, as Hart demonstrates, created a terrain in the United States for principled debate about women, work, and the state--and a momentum for public policy--unparalleled in Britain. Hart's book should be of interest to policy, labor, women's, and legal historians, to political scientists, and to students of gender issues, law, and social policy.

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Subject: Activism / Amendment / Bill of rights / Cable Act / Central Authority / Common law / Constitution / Constitutional / Constitutional amendment / Constitutional crisis / Constitutional law / Constitutional right / Constitutionalism / Constitutionality / Cross-class alliance / Due process / Due Process Clause / E. P. Thompson / Employment / Equal Opportunities Commission (United Kingdom) / Equal Rights Amendment / Factory Acts / Fair Labor Standards Act / Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution / Freedom of contract / Grace Abbott / Great Britain / Henry Demarest Lloyd / History / Individual and group rights / Judicial deference / Labour law / Labour movement / LAW / LAW / Constitutional / Law and legislation / Law of the United States / Law's Empire / Legal formalism / Legislation / Living wage / Mandatory sentencing / Mann Act / Mary Lyndon Shanley / Minimum wage / Minimum wage law / National Civic Federation / National Consumers League / National Labor Relations Act / Necessity / New Laws / Original intent / Original meaning / Police power (United States constitutional law) / Policy / Political constitution / Popular sovereignty / Precedent / Procedural due process / Progressivism / Protective laws / Public morality / Right to petition / Rule of law / Sex discrimination in employment / Sex discrimination in employment -- Law and legislation -- Great Britain -- History / Sex discrimination in employment -- Law and legislation -- United States -- History / Sovereignty / Standing (law) / State responsibility / States' rights / Substantive due process / Taking Rights Seriously / The Realist / Their Lives / Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe / Union label / United States / United States Constitution / Wages / Wages -- Minimum wage -- Law and legislation -- Great Britain -- History / Wages -- Minimum wage -- Law and legislation -- United States -- History / Wages -- Women -- Law and legislation -- Great Britain -- History / Wages -- Women -- Law and legislation -- United States -- History / Women / Women -- Employment -- Great Britain -- History / Women -- Employment -- United States -- History / Women and the Law
• ISBN: 069103480X, 9780691034805, 1400821568, 9781400821563