Rights at work: Pay equity reform and the politics of legal mobilization

Summary

Michael W. McCann's 1994 book, "Rights at Work: Pay Equity Reform and the Politics of Legal Mobilization," published by the University of Chicago Press, investigates the pivotal role of legal strategies in the pay equity movement in the United States during the 1970s and 1980s. The paper challenges conventional wisdom that often downplays the effectiveness of litigation in achieving social change, particularly the arguments of scholars like Gerald Rosenberg who suggest that legal action rarely contributes significantly to such movements. McCann also counters the perspective that liberal concepts of rights are inherently self-defeating for progressive politics. Instead, he asserts that legal rights, combined with robust political mobilization, were instrumental in elevating the consciousness of female employees and facilitating reform without creating unrealistic expectations for immediate, sweeping policy changes. The methodology of the study is theoretically and empirically rich, drawing on a "bottom-up" approach to understand how grassroots social movements leverage legal traditions. McCann's research is based on a comprehensive analysis of 28 local pay equity movements across the nation, exploring the political strategies employed in more than a dozen specific struggles, including those involving state employees in Washington and Connecticut, and city employees in San Jose and Los Angeles. A key component of his empirical work involved conducting interviews with over 140 union and feminist activists, providing direct insights into their experiences and perceptions. To frame his analysis, McCann developed a legal mobilization framework that delineates four stages of movement activity: movement building, compelling formal policy changes, actual implementation, and the subsequent impact on future movement endeavors. McCann's findings underscore that the law's most significant contribution was often as a catalyst during the movement-building phase. Even in instances where courts did not directly remedy wage discrimination, litigation and other forms of legal advocacy furnished reformers with a crucial "legal discourse"—a shared understanding of legal rights and their limitations—which was essential for defining and advancing their cause. This legal discourse helped to "raise public legal consciousness" and effectively mobilized working women. Rather than making individuals newly aware of unfair treatment, legal advocacy primarily "raised the expectations and channeled the energies" of women who were already conscious of their disadvantages, thereby activating potential movement beneficiaries by recalibrating their perceptions of achievable advancements. The study also indicates that legal action sometimes functioned as a "club" to force formal policy changes, though its impact in the actual implementation stage was less pronounced. Ultimately, McCann demonstrates that legal mobilization could provide empowering and identity-constituting experiences for participants, even when direct, large-scale policy changes were not immediately realized. This process legitimized their claims through a familiar rights-based language, created political opportunities for collective action, and cultivated an enduring "legal consciousness" among activists who maintained a nuanced view of law as both a source of societal privilege and potential power.