Shister, Joseph

English

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Buffalo Law Review Volume 1 Number 1 Article 26 4-1-1951 Cases and Materials on Labor Law. By Milton Handler and Paul R. Hays. Joseph Shister University at Buffalo Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.law.buffalo.edu/buffalolawreview  Part of the Labor and Employment Law Commons Recommended Citation Joseph Shister, Cases and Materials on Labor Law. By Milton Handler and Paul R. Hays., 1 Buff. L. Rev. 82 (1951). Available at: https://digitalcommons.law.buffalo.edu/buffalolawreview/vol1/iss1/26 This Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by the Law Journals at Digital Commons @ University at Buffalo School of Law. It has been accepted for inclusion in Buffalo Law Review by an authorized editor of Digital Commons @ University at Buffalo School of Law. For more information, please contact lawscholar@buffalo.edu. BUFFALO LAW REVIEWfollowing the Model Uniform Juvenile Court Law, inquiry into the religionof the child is made to enable the court to preserve and protect the child'sreligious faith in the event of placement of the child away from his parents.To be effective, religious motivation must come from sincere convictionand belief in the spiritual and supernatural destiny of man. I cannot agreewith the authors that "religion is largely related to ethnic origins." Nor am I,for the purpose of this point, giving preference to one religious denominationover another. I know from personal experience and from observation ofothers that human conduct is not only influenced but controlled by the indi-vidual's understanding and acceptance of a moral code, and the strength ofhis character to live up to it. I cannot help feeling that the belief in the Godof the founders of our country, Who as the Creator created us equal, and en-dowed us with certain unalienable rights, does influence not only the innerpersonal lives of the individual but also his respect for the rights of hisfellow men.How accurately the sincerity or depth of religious belief and its influenceon particular acts can be measured scientifically, I do not profess to know.Somehow I feel that the Gluecks have the ingenuity, skill and experience thatcould devise the necessary technique and formulae.The foregoing must not be taken as a condemnation of the otherwise ex-cellent study. It is fortunate that the Gluecks are not satisfied to rest on theirlaurels and that in the Preface to UNRAVELING JUVENILE DELINQUENCY theypromise that "this book represents the first analysis of the data of the causalmechanisms of persistent delinquency and express the hope that further re-flection, particularly examination of more intimate intercorrelations of the con-stituents of the various levels of exploration, will very probably bring aboutdeeper insights and some modification of present conclusions."Students of social problems will find in UNRAVELING JUVENILE DELIN-QUENcy an invaluable guide for their own explorations into the mysteries ofhuman behavior.Judge, Children's CourtErie County, New York.VICTOR B. WYLEGALACASES AND MATERIALS ON LABOR LAW. By Milton Handler and Paul R. Hays.St. Paul: West Publishing Company. 1950. Pp. 989. $8.00.Since the volume int question is a legal case book, and this is a legaljournal, it seems rather incongruous for the review to be written by an econo-mist. But what-seems like an incongruity at first blush may well turn out tobe a blessing upon further probing, For an outsider to the legal fraternity,like myself, may-see the problems confronting the labor lawyer from a dif-BOOK REVIEWSferent viewpoint than the lawyer himself. Which means a fresh viewpoint forthe lawyer. Whether this freshness is matched by the constructiveness of theviewpoint is something best left to the judgment of the reader.In my frequent contacts with practicing labor attorneys, either in mycapacity as an arbitrator or otherwise, I have been struck by this fact: veryfew of these lawyers have anywhere near a thorough understanding of theinstitutional (non-legal?) aspects of collective bargaining. And even those fewwhom I know to have a thorough understanding also shift to a so-called legal-istic approach when handling a case either in arbitration or negotiation. Theeffects of such an approach on the labor-management relationship are rarelyconstructive and often disastrous. In part this legalistic approach stems frompartisan representation. But in part too - in the main perhaps - it stemsfrom the training that the law schools for the most part have been providing.Law professors are no different from professors in other fields. Most ofthem do not innovate; they are quite content to follow. Specifically this meansthat the current texts determine the tenor of most of the courses. Which isto argue that the approach of the case books in labor law have more than alittle to do with the kind of training the potential labor lawyer receives in lawschool. If this thesis be accurate, then the volume by Handler and Hays shouldcontribute something toward remedying the defect of labor lawyers previouslyalluded to. To start with, the volume concentrates almost exclusively on col-lective bargaining, which is the labor field where "pure legalism" is mostharmful and which, if I am accurately informed, has been woefully neglectedin many a law school curriculum. The second, and by far most important, con-tribution of this volume to the problem at hand is that, in addition to the"purely legal" material, it includes a good deal of institutional material onunionism and collective bargaining.The authors have included such institutional material as the provisionsof collective bargaining agreements (union security, management security,seniority, wages, etc.), collective bargaining procedures, collective bargainingstrategy and tactics, internal union affairs, etc. The student will glean fromthis material some understanding of the non-legal aspects of collective bar-gaining and unionism. He will not, however, gain too much insight. For theauthors have chosen materials which, for the most part, are purely descriptive.The numerous reports of the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics are acase in point. It may well be the authors felt that some of the analytic findingsin the field of labor economics and labor sociology would prove too difficultfor the "average" student. If so, they clearly erred. There is an abundanceof acceptable analytic material written in non-technical language which the"eaverage" law student can readily understand. To choose only a few illus-trations: Slichter's writings (which the authors have only sparsely used),Bakke's work, Dunlop's investigations, and Perlman's ideas.83BUFFALO LAW REVIEWIt may also be that the authors abstained from including such analyticmaterial lest they be accused by many law professors (who should knowbetter) and law students (who are unsophisticated victims of "bias-baiters")that they were biased in their selections - either "pro-management" or "pro-labor." Disregarding for the moment the disdain with which such chargegshould be treated, the fact remains that there is enough "pro" and "con"analytic material available so that the authors could have included "both sidesof the story," thereby pleasing (almost) everybody - the law professors, thelaw students, and the publisher (to whom the volume of sales is of more thanpassing importance).But despite this shortcoming in the selection of the institutional material,the volume has the great merit of at least attempting to deal with the mainproblem of labor law training - namely, how to teach both the "purely legal"and the institutional aspects of collective bargaining. And as such it is recom-mended to those faculties that look upon law as a constructive social forcerather than an instrument to be exploited to the fullest for personal gain.Chairman, Department of Industrial RelationsUniversity of Buffalo.Joseph ShisterINTERNATIONALES ZIVILPROZESSRECHT. By Erwin Riezler, professor in Munich.XIII and 710 pages. (Nr. 20 der Beitrdge zum auslindischen und inter-nationalen Privatrecht. Herausgegeben vom Kaiser Wilhelm-Institut ftirauslindisches und internationales Privatrecht. In Gemeinschaft mit Wal-ter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin, Verlag J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck) Til-bingen (1949).As the author emphasizes in his preface, the book is an "attempt" to pre-sent a comparative discussion of the international procedural law.The author in his modesty speaks of an "attempt," but the book is muchmore. To explain this to American readers means to point out that courses orbooks on private international law on the Continent generally do not extendto jurisdictional and procedural questions whereas here jurisdictional prob-lems constitute an essential part of conflict of laws, and procedural questionsare usually taken up in connection with the subject of "substance" and "pro-cedure." The present volume, therefore, undertakes the discussion of theprocedural side (in the widest possible sense, as the survey of its contentsshows) of Private International Law.The book is divided into twelve chapters. The first deals with introductorymatters such as the concept of international procedural law and its sources,then with treaties, the freedom of parties to bargain on the application of legalrules, and with comprehensive if ever so concise historical outlines, as well as84

Cases and Materials on Labor Law. By Milton Handler and Paul R. Hays.

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Cases and Materials on Labor Law. By Milton Handler and Paul R. Hays.

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