Thick Skin - Serving Uncle Samuel and the Clinton White House: A Review of William B. Gould - Labored Relations

Abstract:     
It is no secret in the labor community that Bill Gould's chairmanship of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) attracted more than its fair share of criticism. This review assesses Gould's term as memorialized in Gould's memoir, Labored Relations. In the course of the review, I argue that the call of public service does not come cheap. By looking at Gould's experience in comparison to other new Clinton administration agency heads, especially FCC Chair Reed Hundt, it becomes clear that agency policy-making has become increasingly difficult in the face of Congressional partisan politics. Nonetheless, memoirs are a key tool for evaluating agency and political behavior in the modern era.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 19

Keywords: Labor Law, NLRB, memoirs, administrative law, politics, policy making, William B. Gould, Reed E. Hundt

Accepted Paper Series