Digital Commons Network^™

“We Feminine Foresters”: Women, Conservation, And The Usda Forest Service, 1850-1970, Rachel D. Kline

Doctoral Dissertations

The traditional narrative of the Forest Service places the mythic “two-fisted” male ranger as the focus of its history. The reality is that without women he would not have gotten the job done. Women’s work as advocates, foresters, rangers’ wives, clerks, information and education specialists, scientific researchers, and lookouts reveals that although women were excluded from the male domain of forestry, they created a distinct female tradition within the Forest Service—what one called a “feminine forestry” that proved without women, the Forest Service would not have achieved its accomplishments or growth throughout the twentieth century. Throughout their work, women spread …

Uncertainty In Employee Status Across Federal Law, Ryan G. Vacca

Law Faculty Scholarship

Numerous federal statutes rely on a distinction between employees and independent contractors. Based on a series of Supreme Court decisions from 1968 through 2003, courts and administrative agencies have used a common law multifactor test to draw this distinction. In an effort to enhance predictability and certainty within and across legislation, these cases have rejected a purposive approach in applying the test. But the Supreme Court has never said which, if any, of the factors are the most important in the analysis, nor has anyone determined whether the underlying purpose—enhancing predictability and certainty—has been attained.

This empirical Study uses content …

From Subject To Citizen And From Slave To Freedman: Labor Contracts At Two Moments Of American Transition, Rose Julia Phipps

Honors Theses and Capstones

No abstract provided.

Comparison Of Maintenance Cost, Labor Demands, And System Performance For Lid And Conventional Stormwater Management, James J. Houle, Robert M. Roseen, Thomas P. Ballestero, Timothy A. Puls, James Sherrard Jr.

UNH Stormwater Center

The perception of the maintenance demands of low impact development (LID) systems represents a significant barrier to the acceptance of LID technologies. Despite the increasing use of LID over the past two decades, stormwater managers still have minimal documentation in regard to the frequency, intensity, and costs associated with LID operations and maintenance. Due to increasing requirements for more effective treatment of runoff and the proliferation of total maximum daily load (TMDL) requirements, there is a greater need for more documented maintenance information for planning and implementation of stormwater control measures (SCMs). This study examined seven different types of SCMs …

The Association Between Sexual Orientation And Labor Market Outcomes, Justine A. Bulgar-Medina

Master's Theses and Capstones

The purpose of this research is to begin to describe various aspects of interactions with the labor market (e.g. employment status, individual income, household income) based on sexual orientation, using nationally representative data from the General Social Survey. Much of the previous research suggests that any observed differences can be attributed to employee choice of occupation or other voluntary aspects of employment. Furthermore, previous research has found wage premiums for gay women and penalties for gay men, with sexual orientation, not gender, as the lead cause. Based on this current data, I assert that any observed difference is an artifact …

The Color Of Labor: The Changing Racial And Spatial Distribution Of Middle-Skill Employment, Justin R. Young

Master's Theses and Capstones

Research regarding the growing gap between rich and poor has not wholly considered the dissolution of America's middle-skill jobs (occupations that require training/education beyond the high-school level, but less than a four-year degree). I draw on data from the CPS (1990 to 2009) to uncover the extent to which low, middle, and high-skill employment are distributed among white and nonwhite workers in rural, suburban and urban regions, and how this distribution has changed since 1990. Blacks and Hispanics remain overrepresented in low-skill employment and underrepresented in high-skill labor, although blacks made the most significant percentage gains in high-skill employment since …

Spatial Aspects Of Infant Mortality And Informal Workers: The Case Of Ceara State -Brazil, Ricardo Soares

Doctoral Dissertations

High levels of infant mortality and high participation of informal workers in the labor market are living conditions faced by many developing countries. In Ceara State - Brazil, their trends during the last three decades have followed opposite directions. Whereas infant mortality has decreased substantially since the 1980s, suggesting that the country is on the right path to development, the labor market has presented increasing levels of informality, which challenges traditional theories of development. The essays of this thesis aim to investigate some aspects of these two phenomena. In particular, the first essay offers an approach to analyze if the …

Money, Output And Real Wages In A New Keynesian Framework With Heterogeneous Labor And Monopsonistic Firms, Robert J. Martel

Doctoral Dissertations

Representative agent models do not match up well with three stylized facts of the business cycle: a money-output connection, countercyclical markups, and acyclical real wages. This thesis investigates whether a New Keynesian model which departs from the representative agent assumptions and models heterogeneity and imperfect competition in the labor market is more consistent with these stylized facts.

One possible explanation of countercyclical markups and acyclical real wages is that labor markets are monopsonistic and monopsony power is weaker during expansions than in recessions, This would require that the elasticity of labor supply be procyclical. This is not possible if worker …

The Role-Set Of The Truck Driver: Issues Of Worker Autonomy, Ideology, And Identity, Bruce Patrick Day

Doctoral Dissertations

In this dissertation, I explore occupational socialization and identity formation within the context of work, the workplace, and work practices. The workers presented in this study are long-haul, freight carrying truck drivers. The components of this study include: (a) a socio-historical analysis of the trucking industry, and (b) how characteristics of the truck drivers' work influence his identity, and how this influence is different for various types of drivers.

I have reviewed changes in the trucking industry from its beginnings at the start of this century to its current status in 1996. This includes looking at organizations developed in response …

Information Technology, Employee Participation And The De-Skilling Thesis, Jay Charles Lacke

Doctoral Dissertations

While the de-skilling of work may involve many facets, including task simplification and the degradation of manual skills, this dissertation focuses specifically on the loss of control by workers over the organization and direction ("conception") of their own work. This focus is consistent with Harry Braverman's (1974) seminal argument that the "pivot" of capitalist management, and the core of the de-skilling thesis, is the separation of the conception of work from its execution.

Employee participation strategies whereby workers exercise discretion over the organization and conduct of work are contrary to the de-skilling thesis. But their existence is compatible with post-Braverman …

Bilateral Monopoly In The Shipbuilding Industry: A Study Of Wage-Rate Determination, Gregory Woodhead

Doctoral Dissertations

The primary goal of this dissertation is to explicate the dynamic factors that influence the outcome of collective bargaining when a strong union with monopoly power over the supply of labor faces an employer exercising monopsony power over the demand for labor. A significant characteristic of the bilateral monopoly model is the indeterminacy of both the wage level and the quantity of labor employed. Each party sets bounds on the range of possible outcomes, but the final outcome is determined by the process of collective bargaining. The research methodology requires an examination of wage-rate determination in the U.S. shipbuilding industry …

The Impact Of Occupational Segregation On The Net Black-White Male Earnings Gap, Michael Greene

Doctoral Dissertations

Even after controlling for racial differences in human capital characteristics, a black-white male earnings gap continues to persist. There have been very few attempts, however, to empirically assess the extent to which occupational segregation can explain this remaining earnings differential.

Drawing on the 1980 Public-Use Microdata Sample (1/1000 C-Sample), multiple regression equations are estimated and employed to identify the impact of occupational segregation on the net black-white make earnings differential. The empirical evidence shows that, after controlling for racial differences in personal characteristics, a black-white male earnings gap of 10.6% continues to persist. Occupational segregation is found to explain almost …

The Management Response To Union Organizing Of Registered Nurses, Jill Kathleen Kriesky

Doctoral Dissertations

In recent decades, employment in the service sector has swelled while the number of jobs in manufacturing has declined. Simultaneously, the percent of the workforce belonging to labor unions has fallen to about seventeen. It is the organization of service industry workers which unions expect to reverse the latter trend. However, a major obstacle facing union organizers of service workers is management's increasing use of labor-management consultants to resist organization.

In a growing, predominantly female, service occupation, registered nurses (RNs) in hospitals represent the type of workers unions must organize to increase membership. While dissatisfaction with job conditions makes nurses …

The Organization Of Work In Residential Construction (New Hampshire), Kent Alan Klitgaard

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation focuses upon the relations of work in the housebuilding sector of the New Hampshire economy. While changing technology is integrated into the analysis, the primary concentration is upon the organization of work, which includes the development of the technical division of labor, supervision and structures of control, and the degrees of dependence or independence afforded the worker. The study is located within the theoretical context of the subordination of labor to capital. Analysts of the labor process have asserted that the formal subordination of labor to capital exists when private ownership and the relations of wage labor and …