front cover of Broken Promise
Broken Promise
The Subversion Of U.S. Labor Relations
James A. Gross
Temple University Press, 2003

The Wagner Act of 1935 (later the Wagner-Taft-Hartley Act of 1947) was intended to democratize vast numbers of American workplaces: the federal government was to encourage worker organization and the substitution of collective bargaining for employers' unilateral determination of vital work-place matters. Yet this system of industrial democracy was never realized; the promise was "broken." In this rare inside look at the process of government regulation over the last forty-five years, James A. Gross analyzes why the promise of the policy was never fulfilled.

Gross looks at how the National Labor Relations Board's (NLRB) policy-making has been influenced by the President, the Congress, the Supreme Court, public opinion, resistance by organized employers, the political and economic strategies of organized labor, and the ideological dispositions of NLRB appointees. This book provides the historical perspective needed for a reevaluation of national labor policy. It delineates where we are now, how we got here, and what fundamental questions must be addressed if policy-makers are to make changes consistent with the underlying principles of democracy.

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Generation Denied
The Broken Promise of Education in Iran
Reza Khanzadeh
University of Texas Press, 2026

An examination of the struggles of Iran’s youth when education promises success only through loyalty to the regime, and how that loyalty manifests through ideological capital within regime-imposed parameters.

Education is highly prized in Iranian society, touted as the key to success and influence. After all, the state’s top leaders are themselves scholars and experts in Islamic thought, history, and law, and graduates of elite institutions like Sharif University enjoy better job prospects than their peers. Yet the promise of a return on investment from education is a ruse: what unlocks opportunity is not academic development but loyalty to the regime. Generation Denied shows how the education system, from middle school through university, relies on standardized tests to funnel students into politically quiescent STEM fields, limiting their potential and quashing intellectual opposition to the regime. Students then graduate into a job market dominated by regime-affiliated entities, who hire applicants on the basis not of skills but of political agendas. Those who resist discover that the future they want in Iran does not exist, resulting in compelled migration. Closely following five young men who chose to be outsiders by pursuing education while rejecting political conformity, Reza Khanzadeh situates Iran within a broader global context, offering groundbreaking insight into the roles of education and employment in non-democratic governments.

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