(Originally published in in 2022 by )
LSE was an important node in the development of comparative labor law in the 1960s. William B. Gould was a leading scholar of U.S labor law at the Department of Law. He then went on to have a distinguished career in academia and industrial relationships. We spoke with Professor Gould to discuss his experiences and the influence of his time at LSE.
The LSE Law Department housed such prominent labour law professors in the 1960s like Sir Otto Kahn Freund, Lord Wedderburn, and other notables like Lord Wedderburn. Did they bring you to LSE when you were a young labour lawyer? Or was it another reason you found yourself in London?
Kahn Freund’s presence was the main attraction. Wedderburn wasn’t yet at LSE, he would arrive 3 or 4 years later. I met him during one of my trips to London in the 60s. Kahn Freund was a leading comparative labor lawyer. I knew of his preeminence and I learned of the School through Inge Hyman (nee Neufeld), a British friend who was studying at Cornell Law School. Based on discussions with Mrs. Hyman, and my own readings, the first time I heard about LSE was through Harold Laski’s writings. I do not believe that I started the Holmes-Laski Letters before my return to America in 1963. Mrs. Hyman’s strong and persistent recommendation stayed with me, even after I was hired to my dream job as Assistant General Counsel for United Auto Workers in Detroit. I quit that job to join LSE.
What was your primary focus at that time? How did your experiences at LSE and England inform the canonical work you did later?
My research focused on three things: (1) Comparative labor law with Professor Kahn Freund, (2) comparisons between American and British labor management and labor law systems, (3) and the relationship between politics and unions. This was a large part of the research that informed my later work. My book Japan’s Reshaping of American Labor Law (1984, MIT) and other articles are examples of this first theme. The second theme is illustrated by ‘Taft-Hartley comes to Great Britain: Observations about the Industrial Relations Act of 1971’. 1421 (1972), as well as a paper I presented at Chatham House, London, when I was Chairman, National Relations Labor Board. (reproduced in Labored Relations Law, Politics and the NLRB – A Memoir (2000). These themes are reflected in A Primer of American Labor Law (MIT, Cambridge, 1st Edition 1982, 6th Edition 2019). The third theme was not covered in my writings until “Organized Labor, Supreme Court and Harris v Quinn: Deja Vu all Over Again?”, 2014. Ct. Rev. Ct. Rev. 133 (2015), and ‘How Five Young Men Channeled 9 Old Men: Janus And the High Court’s Anti-Labor Policiesmaking’, 53 U.S.F.L. Rev. 209, (2019).
Apart from classes with Kahn Freund and Phelps Brown, Burt Roberts taught me political science classes. I also attended lectures. Victor Reuther was one of my UAW friends. He introduced me to Dennis Healey, CAR Crossland, Deputy Leader George Brown and author of The Future of Socialism. Ray Gunter is the Minister of Labor. George Woodcock welcomed me when I arrived at TUC Headquarters in London, in the fall 1962. Within one week of my arrival, Hugh Gaitskell’s “One Thousand Years of History” speech was delivered at the Labor Party Conference in Brighton. I met with Sir Keith Joseph, a Macmillan cabinet member, my Conservative Party leader.
How would you compare approaches to labor law in the U.S. and the UK? What would your career look like if you had stayed in the UK, and how might that have affected your job prospects? It was an option at the time.
These differences are primarily due to the union structure, dispute resolution and the role played by law. Kahn Freund often said to me, “You Americans have too many laws.” History was the one that brought the unions to Britain, before the law. At least the law which protected them. Kahn Freund often said that the opposite was true in America.
It is difficult to speculate on whether my career in Britain would be different from what it was. It would have been quite different. Although I wasn’t yet an academic, I believe that I applied to Lancaster University and was offered some interest. I was offered a job with the International Labor Organization in Geneva Switzerland, but it wasn’t in a department that was right for me.
It was that year in London that I realized how American I was. This brings me back to George Bernard Shaw’s reference to two countries separated by a common tongue.
How does your new book, For Labor to Build Upon : Wars, Depression, and Pandemic, compare with your other work as an author of 11 books and over 60 law review articles? Can you tell us about the motivation behind this study and what were its results?
This book is in some ways a summary of my life and how it has changed. My motivation came from the fact that organized labor had experienced such difficulties over the years, and that its decline was not properly understood and discussed. My 1993 book Agenda to Reform (MIT 1993) was the closest I came to this. Concerned by what I consider to be simplistic explanations of labor’s decline and the fact that, aside from Leo Wolman’s 1930s book, little attention has been paid to the role cataclysmic events like war, depression, or now pandemic in assessing the rate of trade union growth and fall, I have become increasingly concerned. I am becoming increasingly frustrated with the country’s writing, which assumes that law can significantly alter these developments. Although law is symbiotic with union growth and decline, it is subordinate. This is my message. It is something I believe might resonate with Otto Kahn Freund, my LSE tutor.
Are there any particular pieces of work, both your own and those of 1960s LSE colleagues that have had a significant impact on the law and practice in your field? Are there any areas of research you wish were more influential or could they be?
Kahn Freund’s writings, especially on comparative labor law have greatly influenced me. One thing I regret is not having completed my empirical research on dispute resolution in 70s.
How would you describe the differences between American and British approaches to learning and teaching?
As a young student, there was a stark difference in teaching and learning in LSE and in the intellectual environment at law school in the United States. The main reason I left Detroit, even though I loved it tremendously, and moved to London was that I felt that law school had ruined my ability to write well as to think clearly about how law related to the real world. My year in London gave me the opportunity to reenergize my intellectual faculties.
It is very different today. Stanford Law School students have an opportunity to experience a rich variety of teaching methods and teachers, something I didn’t get as a student.
We are delighted to welcome you to Ratio, given your long-standing connections with the LSE Law School. Why is it important for you to remain connected as an alumni?
Most of the answers I have given above are obvious. This period is what I consider a formative period. It was a period of intense reading and attendance at lectures in London, Britain, and Europe. In London, I also met my wife, who was teaching remedial courses at LSE. She had previously earned a Master’s degree at LSE and a Bachelor’s Degree at Manchester. I have now three children and four grandchildren. All of this was possible because I spent a year at LSE.
William B. Gould IV, Charles A. Beardsley Professor Emeritus of Law at Stanford Law School, is William B. Gould IV. Former Chairman of National Labor Relations Board, 1994-1998. Former Chairman of California Agricultural Labor Relations Board, 2014-2017. Five honorary doctorates have been awarded to Professor Gould for his outstanding contributions in the areas of labor law, industrial relations, and other related fields. London School of Economics, 1962-1963.