Labor Law for the Rank-and-Filer

Or, Building Solidarity While Staying Clear of the Law

by Staughton Lynd

Publication date: January 1980
Paperback: $14.00

The classic text ... in a limited number of remaining copies!

From the Introduction—

“This is a do-it-yourself manual. Its goal is to help you deal more effectively with the law: to protect yourself more effectively when the law is against you, and to get more accomplished when the law is on your side.

My point of view is that whenever a problem can be solved without the help of a lawyer, do it. Besides being expensive, the law takes a long time. And it is written and administered by individuals who for the most part do not understand or sympathize with the experience of working people.

Lawyers, like doctors, make their profession seem more mysterious than it really is. They use big words when short words would do just as well. They encourage workers to feel helpless unless a lawyer is representing them.

My aim is not to teach you the law. It is to teach you how to teach yourself at least the broad outlines of the law, so that you can diagnose a labor law problem, just as you might size up what's wrong with the car engine.”