"A Wagner Act for Public Employees": Labor's Deferred Dream and the Rise of Conservatism, 1970-1976.

The article discusses efforts by U.S. public employees to unionize in the 1970s and its effect on the broader labor movement. The article describes how public employees in the 1970s were hoping to reproduce the successes of the private sector labor movement in the 1930s, which included the passage of legislation similar to the 1935 Wagner Act (National Labor Relations Act). The article explains how the failure of public employees to successfully lobby for pro-labor legislation negatively affected the private sector labor movement in the U.S. and helps explain the rise of conservatism. Details are provided regarding the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), and the effects of the New Deal on conservatism.